


This Is How We Scorch The Earth

by ModernMutiny



Series: TOG Superhero AU [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Canon Queer Relationship, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Catholic Guilt, Identity Porn, M/M, Muslim Character, No beta we die like mne, Secret Identity, Secrets, Tags Are Hard, aggressively requited love, we're all queer here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29306478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernMutiny/pseuds/ModernMutiny
Summary: Nicky always knew his crush on fellow superhero Joe Al-Kaysani, aka Solar Flare, would never come to anything. His identity was a closely guarded secret while Joe's was the exact opposite. That wasn't going to change, no matter how much he secretly wished it could.But then his best friend Quynh sets him up on a blind date...with Joe. Suddenly, on top of a game of dating and hidden identities, Nicky has to deal with an influx of weapons into the community and some odd occurences at his day job.Life is never dull when operating as a semi-illegal vigilante.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Quynh | Noriko
Series: TOG Superhero AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160135
Comments: 71
Kudos: 256
Collections: The Old Guard Big Bang





	1. You Pour The Gas and I'll Strike The Match

**Author's Note:**

> First off, this whole thing is thanks to the TOG Big Bang 2021 team and _especially_ my lovely artist Dee (@dylogger) who was a wonderful partner and made me so much beautiful art that I literally made an entire Google slides presentation of it all to print off and tape above my desk for inspiration as I wrote. Dee is also working on a whole masterpost for the art, including pics of the works in progress and the inspiration for the outfits and why she made the decisions she did, which will be added as another work to this series in between this work and the sequels, if you want to check it out!  
> Also if you want updates on the sequels or just to talk any the fic, feel free to hit me up on tumblr @modernmutiny or my tog sideblog @thegayguard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of this chapter is from Fine Art by The Limousines. Title of the work itself was shamelessly taken from the newest addition to the “it’s gay and it slaps” shelf on my bookshelf: The Extrordinaries by TJ Klune, which is a very cute YA novel about a regular dude with ADHD and an Ao3 account falling in love with the superhero he writes about.  
> Also if the fic summary was enticing, thank my bang partner Dee for that. I'm not too strong on summaries of long works, so her input was invaluable.

  
  


Nicky, well. He wasn’t exactly what one would call charismatic. Or rich, or heroic, or really even a functioning adult to be quite honest. So, really, Nicolò di Genova wasn’t anything one would expect of a superhero. And yet, here he was. 

Here, relatively, being hidden in the corner of a bank currently being robbed, when he was supposed to be already at work. Though he supposed, if it was any consolation, they were really bad robbers.

Nicky walked towards them calmly. They were maskless, gunless, and completely incompetent, as far as bank robbers went. “I can’t allow you to continue.”

The robbers froze. That wasn’t very smart of them, either.

Nicky raised his hands, summoning his rings of light to hurl at the robbers’ hands, tightening them like cuffs around their wrists. He spun another around their chests, lassoing them together. They scrambled to escape, to move, to do anything, but instead just tripped over each others’ legs and went down like a sack of potatoes.

“If you wouldn’t mind calling the police,” Nicky said gently to the teller, who hurried to do so. Then, more to himself, “I suppose I won’t get to make my deposit, now.”

“You could if you wanted, you know.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. His precognition had stopped warning him of Joe’s presence long ago, much to Nicky’s dismay.

“I know you love flaunting your identity wildly to anyone who asks,” Nicky sniped, “But I prefer to have a _life_ outside all this.”

He turned just in time to see Joe’s blinding smile. And that was saying something, coming from him, who’d been able to create corporeal rings of light since before he could remember.

“That’s okay,” Joe joked, “I can always continue calling you my angel.”

Angel is what most of the public called Nicky - his superhero name, of sorts - but hearing it from Joe’s mouth always felt more special than Nicky liked to admit, even to himself. Joe, on the other hand, had no true pseudonym. The news had dubbed him Solar Flare, for his ability to transform himself into a veritable ball of light and fire, but just as many publications deigned to call him Joe Al-Kaysani, since he was not shy about his civilian identity. 

Sometimes, in his lonelier moments, Nicky thought it seemed a little like fate that the two of them had been blessed with such similar powers, to transform light in the darkness. A larger part of him, once dawn crept over the horizon, knew that nothing between them could ever work. Joe’s life was too big, too public. Nicky had taken many pains to make sure that he could have anonymity, at the end of the day. With Joe, he was afraid all that could disappear.

“You need a ride to...wherever you’re going?”

Nicky blinked hard, meeting Joe’s eyes. He tried to avoid unnecessary eye contact - he couldn’t very well cover them all the time without hampering his ability to help people, but he was also well aware that his eyes were one of his most defining features - but, selfishly, he loved the feeling of falling into the soft, warm embrace of Joe’s gaze.

“That would defeat the purpose of the mask, I think.”

The words felt odd in his mouth. He avoided talking more than necessary, since his accent was also an indicator of his identity, and therefore when he masked up he was forced to coach his voice into something resembling a typical New York accent. Slow, flat, and heavy on the tongue, it was much less comfortable to him than his, admittedly, thick Ligurian dialect. Joe always seemed to make him want to cling onto conversations he normally would have exited, if it were anyone else.

There was laughter shining in Joe’s eyes. He, himself, tended to talk much more, despite the way his own words were overly pronounced, his r’s falling and curling up in the bottom of his jaw. Nicky could crawl up and live inside his voice, the low reverberations and the way he clearly put thought and emotion into every word.

“I could drop you off somewhere close then. It’s a big city. I could get you there faster and not have any idea where you’re headed.”

It was an attractive proposal, certainly. Joe tended to use his powers to fly places by propelling himself through his feet. Like rocket boots, Nicky had described it once, earning himself the loudest laugh he’d heard from the man to date. Even so, having Joe come anywhere near his workplace - which was quite a large high-rise with the company name plastered on it in lights - made something cold and jittery climb up Nicky’s spine.

“I can manage.” Nicky responded, colder than he intended.

Joe, luckily, took no offense. “Next time, huh malaki?”

Nicky could only manage a terse nod, escaping before Joe could put him any more off guard. The rings of light around the robbers would dissipate once he’d gone far enough from the bank, but Joe could handle the hand off to the police. Nicky had to get to his lab before it got too late to reasonably blame on traffic. Again.

  


At least at work he didn’t have to worry about deceptively warm eyes and voices that made his knees melt, just smarmy rich assholes lording over their kingdom of underpaid overworked scientists, like himself.

“Traffic again, huh?”

Nicky shrugged on his lab coat, avoiding Quynh’s judging look.

“I wonder,” She sat at his table, spinning in his chair idly, “How does one get caught in so much traffic on a bicycle?”

Yes, well. There was that.

“Bicyclists still have to obey traffic laws, Quynh.” He pushed past her gently to access his computer.

Quynh hummed. “If you have a secret lover, you can just tell me, you know? We _are_ friends, Nico.”

Nicky huffed a laugh, unwillingly conjuring up images of smiling brown eyes and flames licking at the sky like the sun. Joe must be flying, currently. Nicky’s visions usually only pertained to a few seconds or minutes before an event, and the closer he was physically the more time he would see in advance. This far, it must be near-current, which meant Joe was gliding through the skyline like he owned it, punching through clouds and whooping in the empty air like it was his first time in the sky all over again.

“Oh shit, was I actually right?” Quynh’s voice broke him out of his vision. He really should be more careful about using his powers at work, but Joe was always the exception. “Do you actually have some top secret sexy lover that keeps you tied up until you’re late to work, because if so you’re going to have to tell me exactly where I could find one.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. “First, I’m still tragically single, and second, aren’t you and Andy quite happily together?”

Quynh shrugged. “Just because we’re together doesn’t mean we can’t find some fun outside of each other. We have an arrangement that leaves us both very satisfied.”

That was, quite possibly, the first time Nicky thought it prudent to use the phrase “TMI.” Though, given it was Quynh, he didn’t dare say it out loud. Quynh was scary enough on her own, but her partner Andy was even moreso.

Andy, who Nicky had only met a few times in passing, gave off an air of nothing short of complete confidence and disdain. She walked like there were explosions behind her, like she had just gotten away with tearing down an entire trafficking ring from the inside. That, and she carried with her at all times a long case that looked to possibly be for a lute or some other exotic string instrument, but held instead, Nicky knew well, a heavy blood-coloured labrys.

He’d encountered her in the field every so often, though he wasn’t supposed to know that. Her identity wasn’t as closely guarded as Nicky’s, not flaunted like Joe’s, but a matter of practicality. She wasn’t particularly bothered by keeping it under wraps, but it made it easier if the people she took down weren’t coming after her every minute of the day, so she tried not to advertise where she went during the days, or where she laid her head at night. Even Nicky, who (unbeknownst to her) knew her in both aspects of her life, had no inkling as to what her last name could be. Quynh knew, Nicky was reasonably sure, but had never told him, and he didn’t ask.

It was one thing to know of a terrifyingly competent axewoman who, it seemed, was near immortal. It was an entirely different thing to know the details of her true identity, and have that information stored in one’s mind. That way lies trouble, Nicky thought.

Quynh sighed and stood up, finally relinquishing his seat. “So if you really are single, would you mind if I set you up? I showed your pics to a friend of Andy’s and he’s _very_ keen on meeting you.”

It wasn’t that Nicky was against dating, per se, just that he didn’t have the time. Between working at the lab, his extracurricular heroics, and actually maybe sleeping every once in a while, Nicky was booked up pretty spectacularly.

That, and he was, foolishly, still pining after a man who didn’t even know his name.

He fiddled with his glasses - cheap ones with clear glass inside, mostly to help hide his eyes, and therefore his identity, somewhat in his civilian clothes. “I don’t think so, Quynh.”

She frowned, leaning her hip against his lab table. “Give me one good reason why not. And don’t you dare say you’re busy - all you do is work and go home, so that’s not an excuse.”

Well, there really wasn’t any way to explain all his reservations without coming out about very many things in a very short time. Plus, Nico DiGenova should have no objections at all. The mild-mannered scientist that went to work and home and nowhere in between would, by all means, likely be glad to have an excuse to meet someone new.

“Fine, but don’t expect anything to come of it.”

Quynh grinned like he’d just given her the greatest gift. “Perfect! Meet me tomorrow night then, at that one bar on fifth with the pretzel bites you love so much.”

Quynh hated that bar. Nicky had a sinking feeling he’d just walked into a trap. “Can I even know this mystery man’s name?”

“Nope.” She winked at him, walking back towards her own table. “I promised to keep it a secret. Show up tomorrow and you’ll find out.”

Nicky sighed. He was regretting this already.

  


The bar really did have spectacular pretzel bites, Nicky thought as he snacked and waited for Quynh and company to show up.

The ambiance could use some work, and the drinks were more akin to paint stripper than anything actually consumable, but Nicky liked the place nonetheless. He could sit back and eat his snacks, reading or chatting while he sipped on a virgin daiquiri, and everyone would, after a short time, be too far inebriated to question why he wasn’t drinking, or why he would suddenly have to leave with barely an excuse.

So really, it was the ideal spot, for Angel at least.

“Nico!”

He turned in his booth seat to catch Quynh bounding up towards him, looking stunning. Her and Andy were wearing matching palates - deep wine reds and charcoal greys with small touches of silver in Andy’s earlobes and on Quynh’s fingers. Andy was still carrying her ever-present labrys case. Nicky wondered how she had any hidden identity at all, if she had it on her everywhere. Someone was bound to ask, at some point, what was inside.

Andy caught his gaze lingering on her case and glared at him hard enough that he felt a chill roll down his arms. So maybe she just intimidated people into letting it go. With Andy, that was more than possible.

Quynh planted a quick kiss on Nicky’s forehead, then sat opposite him in the booth, pulling Andy in beside her.

This was very quickly shaping up to be a bad remake of the Parent Trap, in Nicky’s mind.

Quynh opened her mouth to say something - probably disparaging towards Nicky’s outfit, if her incredulous eyebrows at his shirt were any indicator - but Andy shouted before she got a chance.

“Joe! Over here.”

Joe? That was probably a coincidence, right? There were very many people in the world named Joe.

Nicky looked towards the entrance, heart in his throat. That was definitely _Joe_ , his Joe, with the warm eyes and soft curls and the ability to light himself on fire.

He was currently on a blind date with Joe, the man of his dreams. The man who’d become one of his best friends, over the years, and who’d shamelessly flirted with Nicky every chance he got.

The man who, coincidentally, had no clue that the person he’d been flirting with for years at his job was actually sitting in the booth in front of him, in a t-shirt and jeans with clunky glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. Nicky suddenly felt exceedingly underdressed, as if more layers would quell the bone-deep feeling of being so _exposed_.

Nicky whipped his head around to glare at Quynh, who just shrugged. “I said it was a secret, right? Well, turns out Joe doesn’t like people trying to date him for the fame. Who knew?”

A series of images passed over Nicky’s eyes without his consent. Joe sitting close, rubbing elbows and shoulders with Nicky, laughing with that same warm look in his eyes that he had at the bank and every time he met Nicky in costume, a knowing wink, a chilly walk home, lingering looks at a doorway.

Well. At least it didn’t seem as if he would unwillingly reveal his identity, since there was no shouting or betrayed looks. Not that Nicky was particularly worried on that front - he did quite a good job, if he said so himself, with the costume and the accent and the timid act - but it was always a real possibility when meeting any of his work friends, so to speak, out of costume. He’d had a quite memorable panic attack in a drug store bathroom when he first met “Quynh’s girlfriend Andy” without her armor and blood-stained labrys, but since neither of them had given him any hint of knowing where he spent his nights truly, he had calmed in that respect over time.

If Andy, the Scythian Warrior, couldn’t determine who he was, then he was fairly sure no one could. Right?

Nicky set his sights on the present Joe, who was sauntering up to them with a lightness he never seemed to carry when his feet were on the ground, usually. He looked striking outside his costume, in a brightly colored short sleeved button-up with broad orange and yellow and white stripes that he’d only buttoned halfway, tucked into a pair of light colored khakis that outlined his trim waist and were rolled up slightly at his ankles. 

It almost surprised Nicky to see him looking so modern, given his costume was much more… utilitarian. A warm-looking turtle neck and cargo pants in an array of browns and yellows and oranges; beautiful in its own right, but to see Joe dressed up in his civilian clothes was breathtaking.

Nicky stood up, reaching out to shake Joe’s hand like he would if they truly were meeting for the first time. To Joe, Nicky supposed, they actually were.

Joe gently smacked his hand out of the way and went in for a hug and Nicky’s spine...melted. It was such a warm, firm bear hug that Nicky’s brain started rebooting a few times, just to get a handle on the situation. It felt exactly like the one time Nicky had let Joe give him a ride, pressed close, chest to chest, the wind whipping past their faces. This time, instead of the wind, it was Joe rocking them just half a step side to side, like he couldn’t contain his joy.

It was over far _far_ too soon.

“Sorry, Nico, but I’m much more of a hugger.”

Joe sounded entirely unapologetic, grinning like a loon. Nicky couldn’t help but smile back, though much smaller and subtler than Joe’s.

“It’s nice to meet you, Joe.”

Something flickered in Joe’s eyes, but dissipated almost immediately. “Your accent,” He said, smile in his voice, “That’s not just Italian, yeah?”

Nicky looked down, away, anywhere but into Joe’s warm gaze. Even so he could feel Joe’s eyes on him. It felt nearly like being flayed alive. “Yes, well. I’m from Genova, we speak a different language over there. Zeneize.”

Joe ran a hand down Nicky’s arm, leaving a trail of fiery warmth along Nicky’s skin, bending a little to try and catch Nicky’s eyes. It didn’t work. “I have to admit, I’ve never been. Maybe I will someday, if just to hear more of a voice like yours.”

A fierce blush overtook Nicky’s face. As much as he hated how easily he got flustered, it did work in his favor. If Joe mistook his lack of eye contact as shyness and not the, admittedly much less plausible, desperation to hide his secret identity from the man he’d worked so closely with for years then, well, all the better.

They sat in the booth, after a beat, with Nicky sliding to the inside and Joe bracketing him in quite close.

“Okay?” Joe asked, voice low, when he scooted in close enough that their shoulders and elbows knocked together with every breath.

Nicky couldn’t tell him that he’d been waiting for this moment for years, that he’d longed to feel Joe’s warmth - the way Joe ran hotter than most, his skin supple and so warm it almost made Nicky feverish just to be near him - in a context outside of mortal danger.

“Yes,” he said instead, almost managing not to sound completely breathless at the touch of Joe’s skin.

He caught the edge of Joe’s smile in the corner of his eye.

“So!” Andy almost shouted, “Book and Nile are covering my shift tonight, and I know Copycat and Penance are in for Joe, so it looks like we can all indulge a little for once and have a good time.”

Andy, for all her stoicism, was spectacularly bad at keeping secret identities secret. Nicky was unfortunately somewhat of a secretkeeper at this point - his visions tended to make it so that, eventually, he would stumble upon someone’s identity unknowingly - but even without knowing the Sebastien Booker and Nile Freeman were the other members of the Old Guard, well. He would have now.

He did have some respect for them, though. Both Sebastien and Nile did quite a good job keeping their identities hidden away. He’d worked with them quite a lot over the years - Sebastien moreso than Nile, since she had just recently come into her powers - and if he didn’t see it himself then he never would have guessed that the terribly depressed and slightly emotionally tortured widower antique bookshop owner spent his nights summoning spirits to fight crime. It was the same with Nile, a veretan Marine and current art school student, who had gained the ability to duplicate herself so masterfully that very few could tell which of her was real and which was a construction. Nicky could, but he was overwhelmingly familiar with visions that looked so similar to real life, but as far as he knew he and Andy were the only ones.

But, when it came to secrets, it was extraordinarily hard to keep them from Nicky. He tried his best not to intrude on the lives of others, reigning in his visions when he could, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. Attempting to locate Penance after a fight gone awry turned into catching Sebastien taking off his hood and mask in the backroom of his shop. Checking to see if Copycat was in danger gave him the sight of her pulling off her mask to give to a scared little girl to grant her some bravery. He didn’t mean to unmask them but, well. He’d warned them of his powers, many times. They’d assured him it was par for the course, that they trusted him.

He wished, many times, that he could say the same, but well. After everything, trust was not something he gave out lightly.

“I’m not sure I want to go as crazy as you do, Andy,” Joe joked, leaning forwards over the table, “But sure, I’ll take a beer or two.”

Andy looked to Nicky as she got up to head to the bar. “Anything for you?”

The tricky thing was, he usually didn’t drink. He never wanted to be caught with his pants down, per se, if there was an emergency. Then again, he didn’t usually have such explicit assurance that someone else was on guard, ready. 

He really did wish, sometimes, that he could be part of the team if only to have such moments more often.

“Wine, I suppose.”

Quynh looked at him, head tilted. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink, Nico.”

Nicky shrugged. Lying by omission has, sadly, become second nature to him at this point. “Someone has to be able to get you home safely after half a dozen shots. That’s fortunately not my job, tonight.”

Joe laughed, soft and airy. “Andy can drink anyone under the table, so unless they sell vodka by the gallon, Quynh will be in safe hands.”

Nicky chuckled before he could stop himself, slapping a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound.

It was odd, forcing himself to not acknowledge the in-joke, that Andy was near-unkillable, that she probably couldn’t get drunk at all. Angel knew that all well, had heard jokes about it in the past when he was working with the Guard. Nico, however, thought Andy was a regular, run of the mill woman. Well, as regular as Andy was capable of being.

“So,” Quynh drew out the word, insinuating something Nicky wasn’t fully processing with the heat of Joe at his side, searing through his thinning jeans and branding his bare arms, “Nico’s got a really interesting project going on at the lab, right Nico?”

Nicky blinked at Quynh. Why would she bring up work, of all places, when Joe was so close and alive and staring at Nicky like he was the moon in the sky?

Joe turned to Nicky, shifting a little to knock knees under the table and center his full attention on Nicky and _oh_ that was why. Joe’s full attention made Nicky feel like he was the only person in the room, like his face was on fire and his whole body was warming up pleasantly, like a day on the ocean under the hot sun, like everything Nicky missed after moving to New York.

He was supposed to be talking, right? About...something, surely.

“You work with Quynh?” Joe asked, voice light and interested.

Nicky shook himself internally. “Yes, at the lab. I’m looking into disease control currently, how one would mitigate the long-term symptoms of certain illnesses to be able to lessen the impact further on in life.”

Joe paused, and Nicky wished he felt comfortable enough to look into his eyes, see what made Joe stop like that, but he knew that would only lead to disaster.

“He wants to make sure that people who get measles or something similar as a kid don’t have to worry about what that means for their health for the rest of their lives,” Quynh explained, “It’s a big reason for the lack of insurance in people who grew up in poverty, since they can never really get out of that hole.”

“Wow, Nico,” Joe said, as if Nicky was a marvel in human form, “That’s amazing. I always wish I could help people more, make sure they’re safe after I leave, but it sounds like that’s what you’re actually doing.”

Joe paused, something different lighting up his face, like he’d just thought the best joke. Nicky couldn’t help but to look up, seeing that change reflected in his eyes. They were soft and brown and burning so bright Nicky almost had to look away. Something flickered there, the corners crinkling up slightly as his brow smoothed out, making his smile seem warmer and happier, somehow.

“Looks like you’re the real hero here, Nico.” Joe winked, knowingly like Nicky was a part of the joke, reigning Nicky’s attention back in towards that kind smile that went all the way up to those burning bright eyes, beautiful like the sun.

If Nicky thought he had fallen hard for Joe “Solar Flare” Al-Kaysani before, that was _nothing_ compared to way he felt now, his chest both tight and open, heavy and weightless, like everything in him was screaming to be closer to Joe to get to the bottom of these contrasting feelings.

Shit, he had it bad.

Joe’s smile only got warmer, softer, when Nicky did nothing but stare into Joe’s eyes.

Andy came back with the drinks a moment later, Quynh said something that made everyone else laugh, and Joe answered back, but Nicky was stuck. Once he looked into Joe’s eyes once, it seemed like he couldn’t stop.

Luckily, Joe seemed to be similarly affected if the way he kept stealing glances back to Nicky meant anything.

They spent the rest of the night laughing and chatting amicably amongst the group, arms and thighs and ankles pressed together firmly the whole night. Joe finished off his beer but didn’t order another, content instead to try and catch Nicky’s eye and pretend to be sneaky as he stole pretzel bites from Nicky’s basket. Nicky downed his first glass quickly, chasing that feeling of lightness that he so rarely allowed himself to indulge in, and spent the rest of the night slowly sipping at a second glass. Quynh and Andy, however, went all out, downing shot after shot until they - though mostly Quynh - were droopy eyed and giggly.

“I should probably get her home,” Andy suggested, slinging an arm around Quynh, who was grinning wildly and humming something under her breath, a song Nicky only vaguely remembered from his youth. He tried not to let that train of thought go too far.

“Mm, my hero,” Quynh said, snuggling into Andy’s shoulder. “Maybe Nico can be your hero then, huh Yusuf?”

She sung the last word, turning his name into a melody. Nicky had first heard Joe’s true given name long ago, but it always made him feel so warm inside, to hear it again. To be trusted, like that, with something he usually kept so close to the vest.

Joe, catching the same thing Nicky did, laughed a little nervously. “Yeah that’s, uh. That’s my legal name. Not many people use it anymore.”

Something about the way he phrased that made Nicky want to say it more, louder, make every bad memory with that name disappear under the onslaught of his…his feelings. But unfortunately they weren’t anything that Nicky could share. Nothing Nicky could allow himself to have.

“It’s a beautiful name,” Nicky said without thinking it through fully, “Do you mind if I use it, Yusuf?” He let his lips linger against his teeth, stretching the end of the sound like caramel.

Joe’s fingers, which were laden with silver rings and previously occupied with spinning his beer bottle idly, stilled. Nicky’s gaze didn’t leave them to see whatever expression was painting itself over Joe’s face.

“Yes,” Joe breathed after a minute, sounding surprised and settled all at once, “I mean no, I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all, Nico.”

Nicky smirked, just slightly at the corner of his mouth. “Nicolò.” He replied. “If I know your true name, it’s only fair that you know mine.”

“Nicolò,” Joe parroted, sounding it out slowly and carefully, like it might break apart if he put too much pressure on it.

There was probably a metaphor in there, somewhere, that Nicky was too preoccupied to find. Instead he watched the ghost of a smile form in the corners of Joe’s mouth, which was usually so much more expressive.

“Well then, Nicolò,” Joe said, bringing a hand up to gently squeeze Nicky’s bicep like that didn’t make Nicky’s insides melt into a puddle of goo at the absolutely heavenly way the touch warmed him to his very bones, “Looks like the party is breaking up. Would you mind if I walked you home?”

Nicky spared only a passing glance at the opposite side of the table, where Quynh was practically passed out on Andy’s shoulder. It was late, surely. Joe probably needed to get home, Nicky himself needed at least an hour or two of sleep before he went out to patrol the city that night. All that being true still didn’t make Nicky want to leave Joe’s side any quicker, or at all.

This was the first time they had met out of costume, and Nicky was craving this type of connection uninhibited by secrets more than he had realized. He was still keeping his identity secret from Joe, that was true, and that should really have been enough for him to cut this off before it started, let Joe down easy and walk away, but he just… couldn’t. 

Joe was too alluring, was the problem. It was all his fault, surely. Nicky had been alone so long, he wants this too badly, and Joe is here looking perfect and warm and so tender that Nicky thinks Joe’s powers might be infectious because he feels like he might combust at any moment. It wasn’t fair to either of them, Nicky knew, but as long as he didn’t let this go too far it would be harmless, right?

The problem then being, Nicky was pretty sure this was already too far. The night was rapidly careening towards a kiss at the door to his apartment, an invitation upstairs, maybe more - but Nicky knew he could never let it get to that point. As much as he might want this, there were lines he could never cross, and sleeping with Joe without telling him everything was a firm one. Even one night stands while having a secret identity posed a slippery moral dilemma, and Nicky was positive that he wouldn’t be able to walk away from Joe after only one night. He’d have to tell the man eventually, of course, around the time he would imagine he’d tell any significant other (which, when he actually thought about it, that was the exact reason he’d never had a long-term significant other, since he couldn’t imagine telling anyone ever - not again). 

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. As much as he protested, he imagined telling Joe many times, in many different ways. It was a varied fantasy for him, pulling down his mask and watching Joe’s eyes change with warmth, or surprise, or, in his more lonely nights, in arousal. He imagined Joe pulling him off to the side for a private conversation, saying how much he loved Nicky no matter what, how much he waited patiently for this day and how happy he was it finally arrived. 

Every time he even got close to the admission, however, his chest and throat and jaw all tightened, anxiety creeping up around the inner walls of his skull. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - risk it, not even for Joe.

But that was before he met Joe in both his lives. Before he let Joe see all sides of him, spent the evening with his friends with Joe at his side, pressed close and laughing at every bad joke Nicky muttered mostly to himself. That was before he saw how enamoured Joe was with even this version of him, the quiet, mousy Nico. That was before he realized Joe might be worth the risk.

Joe, in the flesh, was still looking at him with such reverence, waiting patiently for Nicky’s answer.

Right, Joe walking him home. There was no reason Nicky should turn down such an invitation, especially not as _Nico_ , who was by all means vulnerable walking all the way home at night when the city’s most prominent superhero was off duty, offering his arm to help him get home safe. Any civilian would jump at the opportunity, he thought, but especially those who were as entranced by Joe as Nicky was.

“I would be honored,” Nicky answered, mustering up more confidence than he usually had when his face was exposed like this, “I hope it’s not too out of your way.”

Joe laughed, with his eyes first and his mouth following, and looked at Nicky like he hung the stars. “I can fly, in case you forgot.”

How could he, when his most treasured memory is himself in costume, clutching to Joe as they soared above the skyline chest to chest, held up only by Joe’s long artist’s fingers wrapped firmly around his waist.

“But if it’s really that far, maybe I could give you a demonstration.” Joe winked.

Nicky’s heart was probably in danger, flipping around as it was inside his ribs. The only thing stopping him was the thought that, in that close of proximity, Joe would surely recall the same night when he held someone with Nicky’s body shape and eyes and hair close to him like that, and the whole thing would fall apart so much quicker than Nicky could handle.

“Maybe next time,” he said, swallowing down the _fuck yes_ that was still sitting just above his collarbone.

Joe smiled softly back at him. “No problem. We can walk, if you’re close enough.”

Something about how Joe phrased it sent Nicky’s mind back to the day before, when Joe offered to give Angel a ride to work. He almost didn’t want to let Joe see his apartment - a part of him was still terrified of the idea of anyone getting too close, knowing information that could backfire later - but a larger part of him wanted at least this one night to relax into it, to just be himself around Joe.

“It’s not too far.”

Joe nodded, and they quickly bid their goodbyes to Quynh and Andy, who were already draped all over each other and nearly to the door. Nicky hadn’t even noticed them get up.

“I was almost hoping you would say it was miles away,” Joe answered, voice pitched low, as they walked out the door to the bar, “I’m not sure I want to let you leave so soon.”

Nicky’s heart jumped. Luckily, he was used to fighting men with guns while Joe flirted so brazenly with him, so leaving the bar with Joe was child’s play. That didn’t change the fact that the lower half of his face flushed bright red at the attention.

Joe brought a hand up towards Nicky’s jaw, almost but not quite touching. “You blush so beautifully,” he said, almost breathless.

“I, well,” Nicky stammered. Of all the things Joe had called him, he didn’t think beautiful was one of them. At least, not in a voice like that. Not when his fingers were so close to the sensitive skin on Nicky’s cheeks that he could feel the intense heat emanating off him.

Joe dropped his hand, burying it in his pocket. “Well then, Nicolò. Where to?”

Right, they were walking home. To Nicky’s home. This infuriating man who was so irresistibly gorgeous and kind that he was shattering every wall Nicky had put up, was going to see where he lived. It was a little close for comfort, but at least Joe didn’t know who Nicky was. He didn’t know that they were headed to Angel’s base of operations, so to speak.

Nicky turned towards his apartment, trusting Joe to follow, and fought back a shiver at the cold. He really should have put on more than a thin flannel over his t-shirt, but hindsight was crystal clear, he supposed.

Then again, he did have a human space heater with him. Or so he was reminded when Joe walked a little too close, throwing off more heat than even he usually did when he wasn’t actively on fire.

“I would offer my jacket if I had one,” Joe explained, keeping pace next to Nicky, “But I don’t have one. I don’t even think I own one, honestly. I tend to run a little hot.” Nicky could hear the smile at the end of Joe’s sentence.

“I can see,” Nicky responded, because apparently his brain-to-mouth filter was on vacation, “I mean feel. Because of the heat.”

Joe chuckled, “Glad to know you can see me, since you’ve been avoiding my eyes all night. Starstruck?”

Nicky froze, stopped walking. “I just, uh. I don’t like eye contact,” He lied through his teeth.

Joe stopped with him, raising his arms and dropping them back down as if he didn’t know if he was allowed to touch Nicky. “I’m sorry, it was just a bad joke. If it makes you uncomfortable to meet people’s eyes, then I won’t push. I promise.”

Well if Nicky had any doubts that Joe was a genuinely good and kind person before, they were gone now. He still couldn’t bring himself to tell him.

He avoided the obvious answer, addressing Joe’s skittishness in kind. “You can touch me you know. I don’t like staring into people’s eyes, that doesn’t mean I’ll break if you hold my hand.”

Joe’s entire body seemed to loosen. He took his hands out of his pockets, holding the arm closest to Nicky up in the air awkwardly. “How about an arm around your shoulders.”

“Perfectly acceptable,” Nicky laughed.

Joe’s arm was strong and warm when it settled around Nicky’s shoulders, brushing at the sensitive skin on the back of his neck. A shiver shot down Nicky’s spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

They walked together in silence for a while, taking in the bustling city around them. It was nice, not having to listen for danger around every corner. The Guard was on duty tonight, they could handle it. If they couldn’t, well. He had one of the world’s best superheroes draped over his shoulders, and Joe was more than capable of handling any errant robber on his own.

This was probably the first time since he was a child that he wasn’t looking for danger. His mother used to chide him on it half-heartedly, but she never knew why he did it, only that he was always on edge, ready to run at the slightest provocation. She thought it was just that he was gay, given he also begged her to teach him to sew and started stealing his sister’s clothes every so often.

Regardless, all the subterfuge was worth it when he first put on his costume one night, stitched together with shaky hands and single-minded determination. It was a nice change to the hoodie he’d worn at first, one he stole from his sister so it wouldn’t be as easy to identify him. He didn’t notice until later, after the newspapers started reporting on his deeds, that there was a pair of angel wings detailed on the back in grey glossy vinyl against the black cotton. It was fitting, he supposed, if unintentional.

Since then, nearly every night - when he wasn’t too injured - he was out in the city, waiting for crimes that he could stop. It was rarely stalking streets anymore - he’d grown more sophisticated, with police scanners and a fairly impressive program, if he said so himself, to map the heaviest crime spots on a given night - but that was where he started. The city streets at night carved him into the person he was meant to be. It was hard not to feel nostalgic, even with the new addition of Joe at his side.

“What’re you thinking about?” Joe asked, lips a mere inch from Nicky’s ear.

Nicky fought back a shudder, unsuccessfully. He hoped Joe thought it was due simply to the cold. “This is the first time in a long while I’ve been able to stop myself and enjoy the moment. It is nice.”

“Oh?” Joe chuckled, hot breath tickling Nicky’s ear, “Just nice? I’m sure I can do better than that.”

He stopped and spun Nicky around, hand on Nicky’s hips, standing face to face with only a few inches between them on the empty sidewalk. Joe leaned in close, nosing against Nicky’s jawline, his breath fogging around the edges of Nicky’s glasses. Nicky almost melted right there.

“Is this okay?”

That was the question wasn’t it? Was this okay? There was a big difference between going on a date with Joe - with _Solar Flare_ \- for fun, to see where things go, to appease Quynh and Andy’s meddling minds. But this? Kissing him under the moonlight, huddled close together to gather up Joe’s warmth, fulfilling every wayward fantasy Nicky had ever had about the man - okay well maybe not _every_ fantasy, but Nicky was a gentleman and didn’t particularly feel comfortable putting out on the first date no matter who the date was, moral obligations aside.

It was all so much, and not enough, and Nicky was fast hurtling towards a tipping point he wasn’t sure he could come back from. If he even wanted to, that is.

He must have taken too long to answer because Joe nodded and pulled back, hands leaving their spot on Nicky’s hipbones. He opened his mouth, probably to apologize, with such concern in his eyes.

Nicky wasn’t sure what (or if) he was thinking, but the next moment his body moved for him and crashed their faces together, catching Joe’s lips in the clumsiest kiss Nicky had ever been a part of.

Then Joe kissed back, soft and open and warm and if Nicky were a poet he would say that the stars aligned, and everything in his life lead straight to this moment here, where he was held up by this man he’d crushed on and lusted after for years, Joe holding him like such a careful artefact that even Nicky was afraid he might break. 

But Nicky wasn’t, a poet that is, so he did the next best thing and wrapped his arms around Joe’s neck, burying his hands in Joe’s curls, and let himself fall into it all.


	2. In The Right Light You Look Like My Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from Undercover by the Limousines which is a very Nicky song in the context of this fic (all the chapter titles will be from their songs bc I Love Them and more people need to love them too)

“So? How perfect was it?”

Nicky sighed to his empty apartment, in a way that even Quynh through his phone’s crappy mic could probably tell was happier than usual. “ _ Bene _ , I admit it was good.”

Quynh all but squealed, causing Nicky to flinch and set his phone down on his kitchen table on speaker. “In Nico terms that’s practically a fairytale dream. Tell me all about it!”

Nicky huffed. It had only been a few hours since he woke up - probably much less for Quynh, who he was very surprised to learn wasn’t bedridden with a world-ending hangover - and all he could think about all morning was last night with Joe.

After their kiss, Joe walked him home, stealing quick pecks on Nicky’s cheek whenever he thought he could get away with it. Little did he know, Nicky would probably let him get away with anything, if he asked, against all of Nicky’s better judgement.

He could practically still feel the heat of Joe’s touch on his face, his lips, the space on his collarbone where Joe tapped out staccato rhythms as they walked in silence. He would have been more concerned about the lasting effects of Joe’s powers, about the warmth sitting inside his ribs even now, if he didn’t already know exactly how they worked.

“He’s… exactly what I needed, I think.”

Quynh made an inquisitive noise over the phone. “Really? Because you’re always super hesitant about dating, which is fine! But I just want to make sure you’re actually okay, you know? I was pretty drunk and Andy vouched for him, but there is a pretty big power imbalance there. You know, since he has powers and you don’t.”

Nicky had to smack his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. He managed to make a considering noise to cover up his mirth. “I, well. I suppose I didn’t think of that.”

He did have to stop for a moment, wondering what powerless nerdy Nico would say. He didn’t necessarily have any experience - from either side, at any rate - so he wasn’t sure what the concerns would be. The same concerns, he supposed, he might raise about Andy and Quynh’s relationship if he didn’t know how well they worked together.

“You have to take precautions, Nicky,” Quynh continued, voice soft. “You haven’t dated a super before, and you’re not a woman so you probably don’t think about this a lot, but there’s always a risk making yourself vulnerable with someone with powers, someone who could hurt you without even realizing. I just want you to stay safe, okay?”

While he was well aware of Joe’s powers - the limits and issues, the way it made Joe feel (like he was pushing fire out from his bones, through muscle and skin like butter until there was nothing left of him but  _ light _ ), exactly what it would take to stop him - but even if he weren’t, he trusts Joe, implicitly. Part of that was from the length of their acquaintanceship, sure, but the rest, Nicky felt, stemmed from the pure sincerity that Joe exuded.

Every word Joe spoke was clear and honest and buoyed by such deep emotion that Nicky couldn’t help but let them curl around his mind, his heart. Even when Joe was little more than an arrogant annoyance, in the very beginning of their relationship, every word he spoke stuck with Nicky in the back of his head, echoing at him for days until the next time they met and Joe offered him even more to carry.

To think that such a man could betray him - even when he hated him, Nicky knew Joe was unfailingly, unerringly,  _ good _ \- was so far from possible it made Nicky’s head spin to even imagine.

“I’ll be safe, Quynh. I promise.”

“Good.” He could practically hear her smile. “Now how big is his dick? Big?”

“Quynh.”

She laughed, bright and mellifluous. “I’m kidding. Mostly. Kinda.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. “We kissed at the doorway, that’s all. No illicit behavior involved.”

“Right, right, you’re allergic to casual sex.”

It wasn’t that he was morally opposed to one night stands in general, but Quynh wasn’t wrong. He didn’t do casual dating or sex, as a rule, due mostly to his other nightly activities running around stopping criminals. Decidedly less fun, but who was he to shun his duties for a night of release.

Then again, he didn’t go out patrolling last night since he was sure Penance and Copycat had it covered. He couldn’t really articulate why, exactly, he didn’t sleep with Joe, except that he didn’t want this to be a casual thing. He wasn’t sold on anything serious; he still knew it would be dangerous to let it go on too long, but to have Joe so close for only one night? Nicky didn’t know if he could handle that.

Joe hadn’t been too terribly eager to jump into bed, either. He clung to Nicky like he was going to disappear any second, but as soon as Nicky confirmed a second date he relaxed and let Nicky take the lead. He was considerate, on top of kind and confident and everything else Nicky admired about him.

Nicky settled on a half-truth. “I don’t think either of us want to move too fast.”

“As long as you’re both on the same page, then good for you.”

She sounded genuinely pleased, something rare when she was discussing Nico’s conquests or lack of. She hadn’t even realized he was gay until a good two years into their friendship. It was a source of constant ribbing on both ends.

“So what’s the plan for date number two? I suggest a romantic cruise together.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. “Just because that worked for you and Andy doesn’t mean it was a good idea.”

He could practically hear her roll her eyes. “Fine. Coffee dates are always a good idea, especially since you met at a bar. Nice, low stress, in the daylight…”

“Yes, well, Joe seemed to think so as well, since that’s what he suggested.”

There was a short pause - unusual for Quynh. “Really? You guys planned a second date already?”

Nicky shrugged, though she couldn’t see it. He picked up a pen on the counter nearby and twirled it in his fingers. He thought about the ping of his phone just five minutes after Joe left him at the door, with a message equal parts shy and bold and including far too many fire emojis. “He texted as soon as he left last night. I don’t know, Quynh, is this a bad decision?”

Quynh sighed. “If it were anyone else asking, I might say yes, but you, Nico? I think you could use a few more bad decisions in your life. You’re so tense all the time, but with Joe you actually seemed to enjoy yourself for a little while. I have to say, as your best friend, that you really deserve someone who can do that, loosen you up a bit. Plus, you really need a good dicking down and I heard he’s  _ packing _ .”

Nicky closed his eyes, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to know where you heard that, or why you felt the need to tell me.” He leaned his hip against the counter, stilling the pen in his hands. “Thanks Quynh. For the advice, not the mental image of Joe’s dick.”

“Anytime. For either, really.”

Nicky huffed a laugh. He glanced at the clock on his oven, noting it was already past noon. He had more chores piled up around his apartment than he was confident he could finish in a day, but if he got started now he could carve away a sizable chunk before he had to leave for patrols. “I should go.”

“Fine, fine,” Quynh said, “Just make sure to keep me updated on the whole Joe business. As the one who introduced you, you’re contractually obligated to tell me all the juicy details.”

“I don’t remember signing that contract,” Nicky hummed, “But I do remember a pinky promise from a few years ago that I would share about my love life when I got one, so I guess you’re covered under that one anyway.”

“Aw, you’re learning! I’m touched.” She laughed, high and melodious. “Talk to you later, nerd.”

“Ciao, Quynh.”

He hung up the phone with a sigh. As much as he loved Quynh, she could be a chatterbox sometimes, and he really did have things to do.

He looked balefully over at the pile of laundry spilling over the edges of his hamper, mentally calculating the number of quarters he would have to shell out to get that many loads done. The number was much higher than he wished.

It was going to be a long day.

  
  


It was an odd feeling, being so rested before a patrol, despite the sheer amount of labor he’d committed to during the day. Nicky hadn’t had a night off in months, possibly years, without it being forced by a major injury (and sometimes not even then), so to have had last night and the following day to forego hero work gave him an unexpected boost of energy. Energy which he summarily used to track down criminals with even more fervor than usual.

The police radio tipped him off to a possible arms deal happening near Central Park after hours, for which they didn’t have enough officers free to dispatch or evidence to put together a raid. A perfect job for Angel.

He crept through the park in the moonlight, letting the cool breeze on the back of his neck sharpen his awareness. His visions hadn’t popped up yet, so he was still a ways away from finding where this meeting was taking place. At least he had the quiet and the cold to allow his mind to empty, settle.

Until both were shattered by the distinct sound of crackling closing in.

“Penance and Copycat said they missed you out on the prowl yesterday,” Joe said, as soon as he was close. At least he opted for a hushed tone, or as hushed as the dramatic Solar Flare could be. He wasn’t exactly known for his stealth.

Nicky’s heart picked up speed, pounding harder in his chest at the prospect of seeing Joe than it ever did in the face of present danger.

“Arms dealers are somewhere in the park,” Nicky responded flatly, mostly to avoid letting his voice betray how his mind replayed the feeling of Joe’s lips on his, “Mind doing a flyby to see where they are?”

Joe flew to hover in front of Nicky, feet still aflame. His smile was almost as bright as his fire. “I, on the other hand, was missing due to a wonderful date, which I just know you want to hear all about, Angel.”

Nicky grunted, resolving to keep his pace and ignore Joe as much as possible. If he looked too hard, or let himself think in the direction his mind seemed to want to go at the sight of Joe’s smile, he’d be too distracted to do his job. The potential dangerous weaponry soon to be released into the neighborhood was more important than Joe at the moment, however slightly.

Joe, bless him, didn’t seem to get the message. “It was magical, truly. He was beautiful and funny and almost unbearably kind. You’ve got some strong competition now, malaki.” He finished with a wink.

Nicky nearly stopped walking, but only just convinced his feet to keep moving of their own accord. To hear Joe talk like this about his date, about  _ Nico _ , was so much more distracting than usual. He was sure it was a joke, that he only wanted to make Angel jealous, but it made Nicky’s heart flutter all the same.

“Glad it went well. Armed criminals now?”

Finally dropping to the ground, Joe joined Nicky in his search. They crept silently for almost a full minute before Joe started up again.

“I’m serious, Angel, he’s amazing.” Joe shook his head. “I can’t believe he wants a second date. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

Nicky did stop that time. Joe thought  _ he  _ was lucky? Joe was miles out of mousy little Nico’s league.  _ Nico _ did nothing but go to work and go home, sometimes reading what he had been reliably told were hellishly boring historical biographies. Angel was the redeemable part of him, the part that was useful and helpful and made the world a better place. Without Angel, Nicky was nothing.

And yet, here Joe was, spouting praises concerning his wonderful date with the man who, for all intents and purposes, was simply a cover story. Angel was his life - Nico was an afterthought.

Letting his curiosity get the better of him, Nicky stood up straight, tilting his head. “Tell me about him.”

Joe might have been as surprised as Nicky that that came out of his mouth. “Really? I thought the arms dealers were so much more important?”

Nicky shrugged. “I’ll know when we’re close,” He explained, tapping at his temple. It was mostly useless, he knew, to insist on quiet when he knew Joe was always bursting to talk and Nicky himself could see any problems before they happened. Even if it wasn’t, he would still want to hear Joe’s voice. He always wanted to hear Joe’s voice.

Joe grinned, wide and unhindered. “All right. He’s gorgeous, in a sort of understated way that I think he tries to hide with his big shirts and bad haircut.” Nicky very deliberately did not touch his own hair at that remark. “And he’s so quietly thoughtful and funny. He says all these jokes he thinks no one can hear but if you’re close enough? Angel, he had me laughing all night.”

Nicky’s stomach churned and his jaw tightened the further Joe went, but if Joe noticed anything he didn’t say.

“And he’s just... his heart is so big, the world isn’t worthy of men with kindness like he holds. He offered to pay for my meal despite the fact that I clearly am wealthier than he is, and he told me he rarely drinks in case one of his friends might need a ride home, and his work is all about saving the universe from the ground up.” Joe sighed, looking dreamily up into the stars. “He’s... perfect.”

Nicky had never been good at accepting praise, this was something he’d always known. The last person who had even tried was Padre Antioco, the thought of which left a sour taste in Nicky’s mouth.

That’s why, he rationalized, he didn't stop himself from biting back, “He can’t be that perfect, Flare. You’ve only just met the man, maybe he’s a secret serial killer, or a terrorist, or...something.” Nicky trailed off, realizing that this was the most he’s said aloud in costume in a long time, even to Joe.

Joe didn’t take the bait, scoffing and rolling his eyes. “Why so cynical, Angel? Are you jealous?”

Nicky couldn’t think of a way to respond to that without sounding like a petulant high schooler. It didn’t help that, technically, it’s probably impossible to be jealous of yourself. 

Luckily his visions saved him from having to explain that to Joe.

Images of two groups of men, one half dressed cleanly in garishly expensive suits and the other looking better outfitted for major urban combat. There was a bridge in the background that Nicky recognized, and as soon as the images disappeared he oriented them in that direction. It wasn’t far off from where they were first headed, anyway.

Nicky opened his mouth to relay the information, but Joe interrupted him before he could utter a sound.

“Your eyes glow when you do that, you know. Like a cat’s.” Joe commented easily, as if mentioning a peculiar shaped cloud in the sky.

It wasn’t in Nicky’s nature to gape, but it was only a near miss this time. Normally, Joe would use an opportunity like this to flirt with Nicky - he had in the past, lamenting how the moon shone through Angel’s eyes as divine Apollo granted him visions, how he truly fit his namesake when his eyes turned such a heavenly shade, etc - but “like a cat’s” was very much  _ not _ flirting. Not coming from Yusuf Al-Kaysani, at any rate.

Nicky shook it off.

“They’re ahead. Near Gapstow.”

“Huh. I thought we were already headed that way,” Joe mused, “My sense of direction is always a little off, on the ground.”

Nicky did stop that time. “You knew where they were and you didn’t stop them?”

“Believe it or not, Angel, I’m not bulletproof.” Joe offered a sly smile. “Yes, I saw them as I flew in - I have a police scanner too, you know - but I figured two divinely powered beings are better at taking down armed bad guys than one.”

Nicky saw the logic in that, he supposed.

“Plus, I wanted to tell you about my date.”

And there he went again. Joe had a habit, Nicky had learned, of leading a conversation the direction he wanted before slipping in the softer truth, almost as a joke. It used to annoy the shit out of Nicky, the way he seemed to be making light of serious situations, but now he knew better. Joe needed to speak his truths, needed to drag them out and lay them in the light of day to be excised, to become something more than words in his head.

Joe put much more stock in words than Nicky ever did. It was comforting, to have such certain honesty offered like a gift. It made Nicky think that maybe the world had it right, when it doled out these powers, if it deemed Joe worthy of something greater than himself. If anyone deserved these gifts, it was Joe.

There was something else, though, that stuck about that statement.

“Why tell me? Your friends in The Guard were surely interested.”

Joe shrugged, avoiding Nicky’s eyes. “You’re my friend, too, Angel. I like sharing things about my life with you.”

Nicky didn’t answer. It wasn’t a jab at him - Joe would have been more opaque about it, if that was his intention - but it felt like it. Joe shared so many things about his life with Angel. Nicky knew about Joe’s friends, his family, his annoying neighbors and the barista that always somehow spelled his name wrong. Joe, well. Joe knew absolutely nothing about Angel.

That wasn’t entirely true, he supposed. Joe knew Angel wasn’t afraid of heights. He knew Angel had a day job, and he lived in the city, and had a particular soft spot for orphans. Joe probably thought Angel was an orphan himself, given how little Nicky gave him to work with. He didn’t know Nicky cared more about the people running the orphanages, the priests and fathers, keeping tabs to be sure that they weren’t misleading the children they vowed to take under their wing. Joe didn’t know Nicky’s sister and brothers and parents were spread across Europe, through Italy and Spain and Greece, still tutting at how far he ran to escape something that he had never confided in them.

Joe knew nothing, and Nicky knew...well not everything, but so much more. It was unfair to him. It was unfair to Nicky’s heart, how much Joe admired him and longed to share everything regardless.

Though, apparently, Joe knew enough to read him.

“I don’t mind that you don’t share back, Angel,” Joe said almost tiredly, like the words were a familiar track worn through constant use. Nicky didn’t often bring it up, but he was sure Joe had to have this conversation with The Guard often. He was Nicky’s staunchest defender when it came to Angel’s civilian identity, and Nicky was sure The Guard brought it up at least a few times when only Joe was around to defend him. “You have your reasons, and I respect that. Whether you share with me soon, or ten years from now, or never -- I’ll still be your friend. You have to trust that.”

Nicky was glad Joe couldn’t see the curl of his mouth from inside his mask. He could feel a grimace spreading across his face involuntarily. He wished, so often, that he could tell Joe. Now that he knew him in both lives, that possibility seemed even further away, somehow. 

Though, he supposed, he could give him something. Something small, insignificant. Something that wouldn’t create a link back to Nico di Genova.

“I was Catholic, once.”

Joe stopped. It was odd, for him, to be so still.

“Oh?” He asked with clearly measured nonchalance.

Nicky chuckled at Joe’s shock, still creeping in the direction of the arms dealers. “You want more personal facts, and you deserve them. I used to be very involved in the Catholic church.”

“But not anymore.” It was more a question than a statement, but Joe was clearly still a little in shock. Whether that was towards the personal nature of the confession or the implications itself remained to be seen.

“No, not anymore,” Nicky confirmed, “I still hold my beliefs, but I no longer believe in the institution.”

Joe hummed, finally catching up to Nicky’s slow creep through the park. “I was Muslim, once.”

Nicky shook his head. “You don’t have to reciprocate. I know so much about you already.”

“I want to.” Joe’s tone brokered no arguments. “I still love it, the religion, the art, the mosques. I just… I’m not sure what I think. We see the worst of humanity daily, and somehow terrible people keep appearing out of nowhere. I’m not sure how much belief I can have for a God that creates such neverending horrors.”

It was a question Nicky himself had often, when he left Italy. “Sometimes it’s not the horrors, but the need they create. Without great evil, there would be no push for great good. Everything is balanced, and it is up to people like us to try to keep that balance so that the bad does not overpower the good.”

Joe was quiet for a moment as they walked.

Nick used the opportunity to reexamine their surroundings. He didn’t see anything with his sight, and so he stopped and closed his eyes to let his visions take over, focusing on the armed dealers he’d seen earlier. The image was clearer now, he counted a dozen men on either side, and even some familiar faces, though he couldn’t pinpoint where he’d encountered them before. They seemed to be waiting for something, or someone. All the better for Nicky and Joe, at the very least.

He opened his eyes again, and started walking once again towards the bridge. They were only a few yards away, now.

“Maybe you’re right,” Joe whispered a few moments later, much closer to Nicky than he’d thought. “I’ll think on it.”

Nicky just nodded, looking towards the clearing ahead. 

The men were all clearly waiting, more than a few on their phones or smoking idly. In between the two groups was a crate, stamped on all sides with warnings that it contained live ammunition. Sloppy, for an illegal deal, to so clearly broadcast what they were selling. Either they were idiots, unlikely, or they were simply unconcerned with police. Given the police themselves declined to show up, Nicky supposed they had reason for their confidence.

He looked back to Joe, who’s eyes immediately locked on Nicky. Nicky fought very hard not to shiver under the full weight of the man’s attention.

Nicky pointed to the crate, then to the air above, taking care not to make any sound that could alarm the men in the clearing. 

Joe responded with a pointed look at Nicky, wordlessly asking what Angel would be doing in the meantime. Nicky looked back over at the men, assessing. The urban soldier types would be more likely to be armed, but the men in suits were almost definitely better trained if their calm in the face of such men who clearly took pains to make themselves seem dangerous meant anything.

Nicky turned back to Joe, motioning towards the suited men with a circular motion, then slicing towards the armoured men. Detain the suits, take out the gunmen face on.

Joe flashed him a sharp grin and a thumbs up before holding up three fingers, then two. One.

Joe burst into flames and took off into the air, Nicky following a second behind. He sent a handful of rings towards the suits on his right, tightening them around wrists and ankles and chests to detain them.

He saw in his mind a flash of gunfire, an explosion, an armed truck driving in.

“Two ‘o’ clock, ten seconds,” Nicky shouted up to Joe, who called back and affirmative.

Nicky ran forward and grabbed the guns from two of the men, throwing them towards the crate in the center. As soon as he did, Joe burnt a circle of fire around the crate, blocking it off from any opportunistic criminals. At ten seconds, he dropped down to avoid the bullet that snapped towards him while Nicky took down the shooter with a kick to the balls.

“Truck in thirty” Nicky called out as he took another shooter down with a fist to the face. Most of them seemed too stunned to truly fight back - probably shocked that anyone had shown up to take them down given the police had all but let them go free.

A few more of the men went down with airy fireballs to the chest, as Nicky went about detaining the rest. 

His focus was starting to fray, with all the rings he had out at once. His visions got choppier, his rings weaker. He moved the ones around the mens’ chests up to their necks, pressing in tightly in a chokehold until they passed out, letting the rings around them dissipate as they dropped to the ground. It was tricky, to exert only the exact force needed to knock them out without snapping their necks, but it was drilled into the back of his mind, exactly how much pressure was required. He’d spent many hours practising, making sure he could do it even when his attention was pulled elsewhere.

The rest of the men he knocked out with a quick ring to the temple, dropping them much more quickly. That, at least, took less calculations.

As soon as the field was clear of armed and conscious enemies, the truck pulled up. Joe, luckily, was on it and hit the tires with hot spears of flames, melting the rubber into the ground.

The men piled out, guns up, but Joe and Nicky dispatched them quickly as Nicky held them still while Joe hit them with his fireballs.

As soon as they were down, Nicky took a deep breath and surveyed the scene. There was something he was forgetting, something important.

He looked to Joe, opening his mouth to comment, when a vision smashed into his view with a picture of the crate of guns exploding. Shit, the fire must be pressing in too close.

Joe was dropping to the ground, walking towards Nicky with a smirk. 

“Crate, six seconds.” Nicky shouted, moving to throw rings out to drag the closest gunmen away from the worst of the blast.

Joe turned tail and jumped towards the crate.

“Flare!” Nicky screamed, frozen in place with fear over Joe. He was running into an explosion headfirst, people didn’t survive that.

He could only take a few steps towards the crate when the explosion rocked him back, knocking him down with a burst of hot wind.

Nicky screwed his eyes shut against the oppressive light, feeling a sudden pain in the center of his back from landing on something hard and unyielding.

Despite the pain, he sat up quickly, frantically looking towards the clearing for Joe, doing his best to keep his fear from freezing him solid. 

The man himself was standing, thank god, coughing and covered in soot but clearly okay.

“I forgot how much gunpowder gets fucking everywhere,” Joe joked, coughs dying off. He ran his hands through his hair and beard, dislodging a cloud of dark powder.

Right. In his panic Nicky had forgotten that Joe could absorb explosions, for the most part, by drawing the fire in towards him. The only ill effect was the smoke, the smell of which hung around him for days afterwards, and the sharp rise in his body temperature for a few hours.

Joe was fine, Nicky reminded himself. He had been at this for years - longer than Nicky, even - and knew exactly what he was doing. Normally Nicky trusted him more than this. Meeting him in his civilian clothes must have messed with Nicky’s head in more ways than one.

“Need a hand?” Joe was standing over him now, dirty and exhausted, but just fine as he offered a hand to help Nicky up.

Nicky took it gratefully, groaning as the movement made the pain in his back burn sharply. He was probably bleeding, if the warm feeling running down his spine meant what he thought it did. That would be difficult to patch up.

The only salve was Joe’s warm - nearly hot - skin heating up Nicky’s even through two layers of gloves. He always ran so warm, even warmer now with the energy from the explosion pulsing through his bones. It was an aspect so unique to Joe that Nicky couldn’t help but be comforted, just a bit, by the reminder of who it was here with him.

Joe gave him a once-over once he was back on his feet. “You okay, Angel?”

Nicky took stock of his injuries, rolling his shoulders and shaking out his limbs slightly. His back seemed to be the biggest problem, everything else was merely minor bruises from the scuffles with the gunmen. “I will be.”

Joe didn’t look convinced, but didn’t push. He looked out over the clearing. All the men were knocked out, but alive as far as Nicky could tell. The only casualty was the large scorched mark where the crate of weapons used to be. Unfortunate, from a forensics standpoint, since there was no longer any real evidence of a crime. Though, it was probably better that the weapons were destroyed regardless, since there was no way they would make it to the streets now.

All in all, a good bust. No real injuries besides his bruised and bleeding back, and even that was from a rock as opposed to the usual black eyes and stab wounds. Two dozen men were down and out, and it barely took two minutes between the two of them.

“We make a pretty good team, huh?” Joe nudged Nicky with his elbow. “Kind of makes me want to make this a permanent arrangement.”

Nicky sighed. He had thought Joe had given this up a long time ago. “I can’t divulge my identity, Solar Flare.”

Joe stepped in front of Nicky, eclipsing his view of the clearing. “You won’t have to. I can convince the boss not to push. All you have to do is say yes.”

That was new. Joe had never offered to forgo that rule before. “I can’t let you do that, and you know why.”

Joe looked at Nicky oddly for a second, opening his mouth to say something before deciding against it. He dropped his shoulders, deflating. “You’re right. Let’s go see if there’s anything damning left, huh? I’ll even let you take it back to your secret lair to analyze.”

Nodding, Nicky follows Joe back to the center of the clearing. There isn’t much left, after the explosion, but they do find a few fragments of weapons, some illegal drugs in some of the mens’ pockets, and a single cellphone, complete with a scrubbed call log.

Nicky stands over the man he took it from, one of the urban soldier types, still unconscious on the ground. There’s no apps, no calls or texts or anything, as if the phone was just turned on for the first time. The only odd thing on the entire device was an empty contact with no phone number or other information, just a name. Keane.

He looks it over for another moment, considering. If he turned it over to the police there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t conveniently lose it, as happened unfortunately often in these types of situations with these overly confident criminals. Even if they did investigate they probably wouldn’t get to it for weeks, and once they did there’s no guarantee that they would find anything that Nicky couldn’t.

No, it was better to keep it himself, follow the leads on his own. His gut was telling him something was off here, more than usual, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it.

“Find anything?” Joe asked, crouching over one of the suited men. None of them had IDs or anything on them to verify who they were or who they worked for. Clearly well-trained professionals.

“Probably not,” Nicky answered, pocketing the phone, “We should leave before they wake up.”

Joe stood, stepping over the sleeping bodies to get to Nicky. “You don’t want to call the police?”

Nicky shrugged. “Be my guest. They won’t do anything.” He gestured to the scene. “There’s no way to find out who any of these men are, and there’s no longer any evidence of a crime. We best leave and be content that the weapons are destroyed.”

Joe glanced back over the clearing. “Sure, okay. Need a ride anyplace?”

Nicky shook his head, hand smoothing over the lump that the cellphone made in his pocket. “I’ll be fine. Thank you, Solar Flare.” Nicky paused for a second, considering his words. “I hope your second date goes well.”

Joe beamed, “You and me both, Angel.”

With a flash of heat and light, Joe took off into the night, leaving Nicky behind with more questions than answers, on all fronts.


	3. Otherwise A Perfect Night If We’re Not Dead Before It Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The limousines have some weirdly perfect and specific lyrics for this fic, which I didn’t realize until halfway through writing it actually. This one is from Flaskaboozendancingshoes.  
> Also! More art from Dee at the end! I cannot overstate how excited I get every time I see the art they made for this fic, truly. To think someone made such beautiful art for something I wrote? _!!!!!_

For some reason, their second date made Nicky much more nervous than their first. This time, he wasn’t so indifferent to his date, he supposed. Blind double dates were expected to be weird and awkward, buffered only by the presence of well-meaning friends unnecessarily talking each other up to their freshly met date. Second dates, though, tended to set the tone. A second date could be the end of it, or, hopefully, lead to a third and fourth and presumably many many dates thereafter. Second dates could make or break burgeoning relationships.

The part that confused Nicky, though, was that he knew he couldn’t let this go well. He was nervous about impressing Joe, when he was already planning to do the exact opposite. He liked Joe far too much already, that much was evident from their first date and their patrol together last night. Joe liked him too, the soft squishy human version of him at least. 

This was all too dangerous, too complicated. Too many people could get hurt, in all the ways that mattered.

So he planned for it all to go wrong. He would be boring and inattentive, he would play up every part of his personality that he’d long ago packed away in a box in his mind labelled “Nico,” only to be opened to help further the mousy civilian facade. If Joe was attracted to the superpowered Angel, then surely the quiet boring Nico would turn him away.

At least, that was what Nicky hoped.

But then he walked into the cafe and Joe, despite Nicky looking as bland as possible in a watery grey-green button-up and washed out jeans, looked at Nicky like he wanted to devour him.

“Nicolò, you look…” Joe’s eyes widened, giving Nicky a once-over, “Fantastic. The stuff of poetry.”

Nicky frowned. “Really? Quynh tells me I have the fashion-sense of a disgruntled step-father.”

Joe laughed out loud, a sound he gave so freely but Nicky always consumed like he was starving. “Our friend is quite descriptive. Though I think the disgruntled part may be a tiny bit true.”

“You look good, as well.” Nicky couldn’t help but feel like it was a lie. Joe didn’t look  _ good _ , he looked breath-taking as usual. Despite the early spring chill, he was only wearing a bright pink and white patterned tank top with the front tucked into a pair of black joggers that were designed with what seemed to be extraneous silver zippers. A smattering of silver rings sat on his fingers, and a steel rectangle hung on his necklace, sitting comfortably in the center of his chest. He looked almost casual, as one did for a mid-Sunday cafe date, but deliberately so. Nicky had a hard time looking away.

As soon as Nicky complimented him, Joe blushed furiously. Deep pinks bloomed high on his cheeks, and Nicky felt the air in Joe’s direction heat up a few degrees. To think Nicky could get that reaction with such few words was near intoxicating. He started to feel his own face heat up, and bit the inside of his cheek to will it away.

“Yes, well.” Nicky cleared his throat and looked to the cafe counter. “Have you ordered yet, or should I get you something?”

Joe looked at him, starry-eyed. “No, I haven’t. Surprise me.”

Nicky bit back the easy response at that, that Joe always surprised him in such wonderful ways. Nico wouldn’t say that. Nico wasn’t that smooth. “Bene. I’ll be right back.”

There was no line - a fact he nearly begrudged since it meant less time to breathe without Joe’s intense gaze on him out of his mask, so exposed - so he got in his order quickly: a macchiato for himself and a white chocolate mocha for Joe, since he seemed like he might like something sugary.

A moment passed, after he paid for the orders, where he wasn’t quite sure whether to wait there or go back to the table with Joe. It wasn’t like he exactly had much practice at this.

Luckily Joe took the decision from him and walked over, standing with his hands tensely at his hips, greeting Nicky with the faint smell of the smoke from the explosion the other day still clinging to his skin. This was the most flustered and tense Nicky had ever seen Joe in all the years they had worked together. He had the thought, briefly, that his plan of being boring obviously wasn’t going to work in the slightest, if Joe was taking in every detail of Nicky like this during the entire date.

“I was thinking,” Joe said, scratching at his beard, “That we could take our coffees to go, walk around the park? People tend not to notice me as much if I’m not sitting still.”

Fuck, Nicky had entirely forgotten in his fit of nerves that Joe was a public figure both in and out of costume. The chance of them being recognized or photographed was high, as long as they were in public.

He scrambled for what to do, but before he could truly panic Joe spoke again.

“I know being stopped on our date by fans wouldn’t exactly be ideal, but inviting you to my apartment for our second date seemed worse.”

True. Nicky might not have gone if that was what Joe suggested. That was moving a little fast, even for him. 

He racked his brain for places to go that were less conducive to approaching strangers, but still allowed them to talk. Because he did want to talk to Joe, desperately, now that he was out of costume and didn’t have to worry about how his voice sounded or if his accent was too thick or any other million little things he juggled to keep his identity a secret. Even in his plans to sabotage the date, he could have simply not shown up, but he wanted - needed - to see Joe out of costume again, let himself at least be friends with the man without the mask in the way.

He really, really, had it bad.

“We could go to the MOMA?” Nicky suggested, “Discuss the art, walk around. People will probably be more invested in the paintings than you.”

Joe smirked. “I don’t know, Nicolò - I’m pretty distracting.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. “Your hubris is astounding.”

“Hubris, huh?” Joe snorted, “I forgot I was on a date with an academic.”

“Do people not regularly drop terms from Greek tragedies in casual conversation?” Nicky joked back, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Oh no, please feel free. I’ve been compared to Icarus many times in the press, so I’ve done my research on that front.” Joe’s eyes twinkled when he joked, Nicky realized. He’d never noticed that before.

“Icarus did fall, you know.” Something about the comparison wrapped tight around Nicky’s heart. The thought of Joe falling through the sky, wax wings melted around his shoulders, head thrown back to look up at the sun… “He couldn’t sustain it on his own.”

Joe’s face turned more serious, eyes boring into Nicky as he licked his lips. “Good thing I’m not alone then, huh Nicolò?”

“Nico?”

They both startle a little at the barista calling out his name.

Nicky grabs his macchiato, moving to hand Joe his white chocolate mocha but only succeeding in grazing his hands against Joe’s, scorchingly hot and deceptively soft. Nicky pulled back quickly with a surprised noise at the sheer heat. He didn’t think the raise in his temperature from the explosion would last so long.

“Sorry,” Joe said, not sounding particularly apologetic, “hot drinks plus a hot guy make my temp jump up a few degrees.”

“A few?” Nicky said, incredulous, “You’re nearly boiling.”

Joe shrugged, a blush rising again on his cheeks and making even the air around him feel balmy. “Nerves don’t help.”

Joe was nervous. Nervous to go on a date with mousy Nico, the man who did nothing spectacular besides play around with dead viruses all day. “You have no reason to be nervous, Yusuf,” Nicky said, hoping the use of his true name would calm him a bit, “You’re perfect.”

The use of his name apparently had the opposite effect, if the fierce blush and hot burst of wind meant anything. Nicky was very surprised Joe’s shirt didn’t catch on fire from the sheer heat. “Thanks Nicolò. At least now you might not need a coat when we go outside.”

Nicky looked down at his own outfit. A button-up and jeans seemed acceptable for an indoor coffee date, but woefully underprepared for a walk around the park in the crisp early spring weather. He supposed it was quite lucky he was with a human space heater. “Perfetto.”

Joe smiled, then led them both outside. It was cool, but sunny. A perfect day for a walk, Nicky realized. “So, Nico...”

Nicky waited for more, but Joe stopped, seemingly out of things to say.

Nicky abandoned his plan of being boring entirely. He couldn’t stand Joe looking like such a lost lamb, all big twinkly eyes and pouty lips. “I heard a rumor you were a secret superhero. Must be exciting.”

Joe laughed. “Oh? Wherever could you have heard that?”

“The girlfriend of my coworker has quite extensive contacts,” Nicky joked.

“Don’t let Andy hear you talk about her like that - her bite is much worse than her bark.” Joe bumped shoulders with Nicky, and it all fell into place.

They were friends, certainly, in costume. But here, now? They had the chance to be more. Even if they didn’t make it as a couple, they could be friends out of costume now, too. They could talk about TV shows, and their friends, and their families. They could finally, truly, get to know each other.

The mere thought of it was intoxicating. Nicky realized with a growing horror that, with the world of possibilities at his feet, he had absolutely no idea what to say.

Luckily he was saved by a band of children sprinting past, yelling about saving the city or whatnot. Nicky was quite glad, most days, that children didn’t seem to idolize him as much as they did The Guard. He didn’t know how he would feel about a small child in a half-mask pretending to be him. He wasn’t exactly the best role model.

Joe, however, seemed completely taken by the display. His eyes were misty as he looked down into his mocha. “I know this is a little heavy for a second date, but those kids they just… That’s why I do it, you know?”

A strange feeling settled in Nicky’s gut, but he ignored it.

“Those kids, they need someone to look up to. Someone who looks like them, someone they can see themselves being.” He looked up to Nicky, no longer bothering to shamble on. “I didn’t have a brown role model growing up, it was all white and straight suburbanite-friendly heroes until Lykon, and even then it wasn’t really the same. To be able to give that to those kids, to give them that hope that they could be heroes, too? That’s the goal, I think. Beyond saving the city, that is.”

Nicky looked back at the kids, noting this time that one of them was darker, with curly hair like Joe’s. “Hence being very open about your religion and sexuality, as well.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah. There’s no other muslim heroes or queer heroes to look up to. I want to inspire those kids, too.”

Nicky kindly didn’t point out that The Scythian had been dating his best friend for seven years and was very much gay. He saw the point, now, of the arrogance and thirst for the spotlight he’d once resented Joe for. The more press he got, the more people liked him, the more kids he could teach that they’re special, too.

Nicky wished, deep in his soul, that he could do that, too.

“I’m sorry you didn’t have such role models growing up,” Nicky said instead, “But I’m glad you now have the opportunity to be the person you needed.”

Joe smiled gently. “Yeah, me too. Don’t get me wrong, my parents always encouraged me even when they didn’t really get it, but the closest thing to a mentor I ever had was The Bronze Basher and, well. That didn’t turn out so great.”

Nicky knew quite a bit more than the press did about Joe’s family growing up, how it was difficult but they had all come to an equilibrium. How powers were seen as a gift, something he was given to inspire the world and help save the powerless.

Nicky, on the other hand, grew up in a place where powers were bestowed by the devil. Succumbing to them meant barring your soul from God, turning your face towards sin.

He remembers discovering his powers one day as a child and feverishly running to the church, his safe haven. He remembers confessing, tears in his eyes, begging for forgiveness.

Padre Antioco heard him, that day. He told Nicky to repent by using his powers for God’s will, punishing sinners and praising those who followed the Lord’s word.

Nicy had disguised himself as well as he could, letting Padre Antioco guide him towards sinners. Molesters, abusers, thieves, murderers, all flavors of sins were cleansed by Nicky’s blessed hands.

Antioco took him in, treating him like a son, teaching him the ways of the world as surely as he taught Nicky morals and God’s will. He told Nicky where the sinners were, guided as he was by his connection to God and to the people. He showed Nicky how to make them afraid, how to make them pay for the sins they committed.

Then one of the men he was sent to take down looked scared. He was at home, reading. He seemed harmless.

“You’re Antioco’s man,” he had said, voice trembling. “You’re- you’re just a boy. Tell him I’ll have the money soon, boy, I promise.”

Nicky froze. He noticed, then, a picture of children smiling on the man’s desk. There was a baby blanket draped over a chair, forgotten about. The man was wearing a soft cardigan, clutching a worn copy of  _ The Sun Also Rises  _ in thin, trembling hands.

Nicky had recognized the man from church. Benigno Gardella. He baked canestrelli for the choir, letting the ushers and the altar boys steal the extras as he pretended not to see. He looked at his granddaughters like they held the sun in their hands. He scolded the boys who tried to seem tough by bullying others.

Padre Antioco had said this man brutalized women in the church. Said he intimidated them, threatened their lives and their children.

Padre Antioco, Nicky had realized with a sick feeling, had lied.

“Signor Gardella,” Nicky had gasped, the first time he’d ever spoken on a night like this, on one of Padre Antioco’s  _ missions _ , “Mi dispiace.”

He’d run from the house, straight to the church, ignoring Benigno’s shouts behind him. 

The stained glass of the old church had seemed so different in the sparse moonlight - pale and weak. The shadows creeping around the pews seemed to move and sway as he jogged towards the diocese, towards the statue of Christ that stood behind it to preside over his followers. The shadows fell strangely over even His face, turning an expression of soft admiration into something sinister.

For the first time in his life, Nicky had felt discomfited by the looming presence of the empty church.

“Nicolò?”

Nicky shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. “Mi scusi, I must have gotten lost in thought.”

Joe smiled at him, a reflection of his usual light like the sunlight illuminating the moon. “That’s my fault, sorry. I got way too deep for a light-hearted coffee date. Let’s just, uh. Can we just keep walking? Talk about something not so serious?”

Nicky smiled back, letting Joe’s warmth buoy him in more ways than one. “Sì, let’s.”

They started walking again, sipping at their drinks. Joe hummed happily into his cup. “Is this a white mocha?”

Nicky, wanting nothing more than to get them both back to more solid ground, smirked. “Sweet and hot, like you.”

Joe stopped walking once again, eyes wide on Nicky, nearly choking on his drink. The paper cup in his hand started smoking.

“Yusuf, you’re smoking.”

The smoke got thicker in Joe’s hand. A small flame flickered to life on the edge of the cup as the plastic lid deformed, melting into his drink. “Nicolò, I- you’re, thank you. I think you look really good, too--”

Nicky laughed, deep and loud. “The cup, Yusuf. Your drink is on fire.”

Joe looked down at his cup belatedly, swearing as the entire thing lit up. He lit his hand up in flames as well, evaporating the drink before it spilled everywhere.

He looked up at Nicky, stuck in place. “I’m sorry, I just - I didn’t think you flirted, at all.”

“Shame about the drink,” Nicky said, sidestepping the obvious question. Why didn’t Nicky flirt with Joe at the bar, on their first date? Joe was laying on the charm quite heavily, and Nicky probably would have reciprocated if there were any thoughts in his head besides  _ cazzo _ and  _ fuck _ and  _ Holy Mary Mother of God he’s gorgeous _ . “Do you want to circle back and get another one?”

Joe shook his head, running his hands through his hair. He looked at Nicky like he held the universe in his palms and was offering it up to Joe, no strings attached. Nicky would if given the chance, so he supposed the look was earned.

“You’re going to keep me on my toes for the rest of my life, aren’t you?”

Nicky’s heart jumped at the thought of Joe wanting  _ forever _ with him. “I’m not sure I want to if you’re going to spontaneously combust every time.”

Joe opened his mouth to answer, probably with a joke given the upward tick of his mouth, but was cut off by his phone ringing obnoxiously from his pocket. He frowned, pulling it out. “That’s weird, I thought I set it to silent.”

Nicky had the feeling his own phone was going to ring, soon. He was already starting to feel the uncomfortable press of a vision behind his eyelids.

Joe answered, not saying a word as his stance drew tighter and tighter.

“Yeah, boss. Soon as I can.” He said finally, sighing as he hung up and threw his phone back in his pocket. He looked to Nicky. “I’m so  _ so _ sorry, but it’s work. There’s a situation in Hell’s Kitchen.”

Nicky nodded, trying to subtly shove his hand in his pocket to silence his own burner phone. “I understand. Go save the world, Superman.”

He leaned in, pressing a chaste kiss to Joe’s lips, only partially to distract him from the light going off from the phone in Nicky’s pocket.

Joe opened up, finding Nicky’s waist blindly and pulling him in for something deeper and firmer. Nicky let himself fall into it, neither pulling away until they were nearly out of breath.

“Stay safe, Nico.”

With that, Joe flew off in the direction of the fight. Nicky waited until he was sure he was gone - definitely not spending those few seconds pressing his fingertips to his lips, trying to hold onto the feeling of Joe’s hot mouth on his - to pull out his phone. It was set up to alert him of any crime above a certain caliber, and this certainly fit. Two rival mobs were staging a shootout over some issue or another, putting helpless civilians at risk.

The Guard was obviously on it, if both Joe and the person on the other end of the phone - Nicky was almost positive it was Andy - would be there. That didn’t stop him from sprinting to the alleyway he’d hidden his suit in before he met up with Joe - just in case - and throwing his glasses off with barely a thought.

They could always use some backup, he reasoned. It had nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t want the date to end.

  
  


He trailed Joe by a few minutes - understandably, since only one of them could fly - and arrived just as the Guard was scattering, plan made. Joe turned to him, face open and bright before he seemed to remember himself, schooling his features. They were at the scene of a mafia shootout, there was a time and place for these things.

“Angel, you’re with me,” Joe said, just loud enough to be heard over the echoing pops of gunfire.

Nicky almost paused to ask how they had incorporated him into their plans, since he hadn't let any of them know he was coming. Then again, he always did show up at these things, perhaps they just assumed.

Nicky nodded and ran to Joe with light feet, doing his best not to be seen or heard. “The plan?”

Joe looked to him, crouched behind a building as he was, his eyes lit with the warmth of a slow simmering fireplace. “We’re the distraction, this time. Big light show up in the middle. I’ll go high, you go low, Copycat will cover us. Penance is on info gathering and the Scythian is going after the big bosses.”

The plan was smart, though not what Nicky would have chosen. He would never have put Joe in danger like that, instead having him circle around the rooftops for snipers and stragglers, cut off their exits with a convenient car fire or two. This plan would probably be faster, result in less injury, but much more risky.

Then again, he did trust Copycat, and knew that Nile wanted to keep Joe and everyone safe just as much as Nicky did.

Nicky nodded, clenching his jaw. “Su- sounds good.” He said, only just barely avoiding outing himself as Italian with a thoughtless  _ subito _ . It was never difficult to hide his accent from Joe before, so the difficulty he found in schooling his language was surprising.

Luckily, if Joe noticed anything wrong he didn’t say. “Send out a few haloes first, get their attention on the ground before I light them up from up top.”

Nicky bit back a smile at the word “halo,” which Joe always used to describe his rings of light. The media and civilians and everyone used that term too - the whole “Angel” moniker lending itself well to the description, he supposed - but it always felt different when Joe said it. It felt like, if Joe said it, it must be true.

Instead, Nicky nodded again, conjuring a ring in his hands. He could send them flying any direction he chose with a gesture, but it was much more accurate to manipulate them by hand. Joe said once that Angel must be very good at Ultimate, since he flung his haloes around like that with such precision. Nicky only learned later he meant the name of a frisbee sport, the goal of which was to throw the discs from player to player to gain goals. Not unlike calcio, he supposed, or American Football.

Nicky dismissed the thought, getting a loose grip on the ring in his hand. He conjured a few more, stacking them in his right as he readied to throw with his left.

“I’m ready whenever you are, Malaki.”

One breath, two, then Nicky threw the first ring at one of the shooters, the ring catching the man’s wrist and sticking it to the building behind him. The second and third and fourth rings followed shortly after, targeting wrists and ankles and chests until there was a pause as most of the shooters were either occupied by attempting to escape their bindings, or wondering where Angel was hiding.

Joe ran forward as soon as Nicky ran out of his first round of rings, taking only a few steps for momentum before he pushed off into the air, his body slowly burning up into a fiery missile aimed at the chaos. He lobbed fireballs down at the men outside, being careful not to hit anywhere that would injure them too badly.

Nicky was lucky in that regard, he supposed. His powers were inherently non-lethal unless he put significant thought into that direction. If he had Joe’s power, he wasn’t sure he would be so careful with the men threatening the lives of so many innocents.

Nicky ran into the fight headlong, letting his subconscious guide him. It was easy, now, letting the visions take over as he counted down to their premiere in real time. One shooter would escape and run towards the alley in twelve seconds, another would lunge for Copycat - the real one, not an afterimage - in sixteen, Penance would be seen in twenty-six. He filed them all away as he fought blindly, punching one man in the face as he wrung the gun from another with a ring behind him.

Five, four, three - he shot a ring out towards the ankles of the runner - four, three, two - he lunged and grabbed the man behind Nile reaching with a hand towards her braids, throwing him to the ground with a well-placed kick to the ribs to keep him down - seven, six, five.

“Flare, seven-o-clock!” He shouted, running towards the wall he saw - would see - Penance phase through.

Joe, well versed now in following Angel’s direction without question, threw a large, airy ball of flame towards a steel drum sitting on a corner, making the whole thing burst into bloated red flames.

Most of the men looked at the explosion, distracted by the loud clang and bright reaching flames, except for the one Nicky was running towards.

Two, one - Sebastien phased through the wall, the man raised his gun, Nicky threw a ring out and pulled Penance out of the way just as he turned corporeal, the gunshot hitting the empty brick with a splash of red dust. Nicky finally reached the man, grabbing him by the back of his black sweater and throwing him to the wall.

“Scelta sbagliata,” Nicky hissed at the man before kneeing him in the balls, making him drop heavily to the ground.

Penance floated up to Nicky, almost weightless as he usually seemed to be in costume. Nicky was pretty sure it was intentional, for dramatic effect. As if the large dark cloak and steel chains didn’t already accomplish that.

“Merci, Angel.” Penance said, with the familiar traces of Quebeçois sitting high in his mouth, “I didn’t know you spoke Italian.”

Nicky glanced behind him, where the fight was mostly over with. They had a few moments until reinforcements came for either side, if they came at all. Which just meant Nicky couldn’t easily step out of the conversation.

“I’m from New York and regularly deal with the Mafia,” Nicky lied through his teeth, fake accent suddenly feeling uncomfortably heavy on his tongue, “I picked up a few things.”

Penance laughed, a low raspy thing that was probably more due to his tendency to chainsmoke than it was his dramatic alter ego. “That’s fair. I get spat at in Italian so much I picked up some phrases, too. Not the actual meaning, mind you, but the intention. I’m pretty sure  _ vaffanculo _ doesn’t mean they’re sorry.”

The way Sebastien’s pronunciation was French around the edges of the word, so close to his own airy Ligurian vowels, made Nicky suddenly inexorably homesick.

A distinct crackling sound closed in, and suddenly Joe was upon them, smiling and sweating like he’d just finished a marathon. Nicky shoved down the thoughts on what else that look might be a side effect of, in Nicky’s apartment someday, laid out upon his seafoam cotton bedsheets.

“Everyone out here is down for the count, and I don’t see any reinforcements,” Joe reported, apparently having finished a quick fly-by. “That was a lot easier than I expected.”

“Blame Angel for that one,” Penance joked, “Without him, I’d be out with Basher right about now.”

Joe’s face fell immediately. “That’s not funny.”

Nicky turned somber as well, remembering the fallen hero.

It was The Bronze Basher and The Scythian and Tide for ages, the original three heroes in the city when everything went to crap. No one knew who they were, or where they got their powers. All they knew was that when the people needed them, suddenly they were there.

The Bronze Basher was always a fan favourite of the three, though, with his bright smiles and ever-present laughter. He always seemed to be having the time of his life, whenever he went out to fight. He was the one that convinced people to trust them, not to be afraid of their powers. If someone as happy and light and bubbly as him was on board with the sudden appearance of superheroes overnight, then it made it all a little easier to swallow.

Then there was the shootout at the power plant. The criminals were in the early stages of a complicated heist, not expecting trouble so early. It was simply bad luck that a young cop on the beat ran into them, that he called the Guard as well as his fellow officers.

The Bronze Basher showed up first, laughing and joking with the officers as he shielded them with whatever metal he could find, all bent together. He wasn’t focused on the one man who snuck towards him with a cut cable from the power plant. The officers were too awed to warn him in time.

The man had apparently learned something in his seventh grade science courses, and figured the best way to stop someone with superpowers was to use their powers against them. He touched the cut cable to the metal shield, the one Bronze Basher was holding to protect the policemen.

Superheroes were many things, but not, as the world learned that day, as infallible as they seemed. Even the criminals were shocked by how The Bronze Basher froze, how he shuddered and twitched and whimpered through the screams stuck in his throat. He stood there for a long moment, wooden and lifeless, before dropping like a marionette without strings.

No one knew what to do. Everyone froze in tense silence, news cameras zooming in on The Basher’s glassy eyes as both cop and criminal came to a standstill. Eventually someone moved, the cops arrested the bad guys without much fuss, running on autopilot. An ambulance came on the scene, paramedics rushing around and hesitating before peeling away his suit to check his vitals.

It was no use. He had been dead before he hit the ground.

He was only unmasked after the funeral, a huge affair that left his poor mother in disarray. She hadn’t known, neither had any of The Guard. No one had known.

Lykon Eskandar was only 23 years old when he died. He started fighting crime with The Guard seven years previous, at 16. No one quite got over his death, and that changed how people saw superheroes for a long time.

Nicky himself was just barely 6 years younger than Lykon, when he died. He had been going out as Angel amongst Northern Italy for a half his life by that point, still guided by Padre Antioco at the time. Hearing of Lykon only made him cling to the Father closer, a mistake that Nicky was sure he could never outrun.

After Lykon’s death there was a hole in The Guard. The Scythian and Tide were too sharp, too biting, the world was starting to question their powers, starting to see them as a threat.

Almost a year later, Joe arrived on the scene. Joe Al-Kaysani was so much like Lykon, a bright and starry-eyed twenty-something who bounded into the dangerous world of crime-fighting with an enthusiasm probably better suited to games of kickball. In costume, he was all soft edges, taking the time to comfort civilians and talk with the children and spout poetry to any reporter that asked. He wore sweaters in opposition to Scythian’s black leather and Tide’s deep navy fabric that looked almost as dangerous as the ocean when she was angry. Most importantly, he let the world know who he was.

Joe told Nicky that he didn’t hide his identity to inspire kids, but Nicky knew that was only partly the truth. If he wanted to help people, to save the heroes and make it safe for them to continue operating, the world needed to trust them. It’s hard to trust a man who’s name you don’t know, who, because of his skin tone and his religion, might seem overly threatening to a public still rocked by tragedy. It’s much easier to trust a man who paints and writes poetry and has a doting mother and a baby sister that share his sunny smiles.

Joe was the reason Angel decided to restart in America, since he’d trusted the man from the start, just like the world did. Then Tide disappeared, and Penance came on the scene with Lykon’s memories clinging to him like a streetlamp in a storm.

It shook everyone, to hear about their fallen hero again after so long, and tended to make the whole world mourn all over again every time Penance talked about him. He didn’t do it often, anymore. Nicky was pretty sure Lykon hadn’t been mentioned more than passingly at all since Copycat came on the scene.

The fact of the matter was, Penance had an odd relationship with death. Understandable, given his powers pulled him so close to what he called “The Veil” that he could step in and out of the physical world with ease, but his flippant way of talking about it all tended to make people uncomfortable. Apparently, Joe was one of those people.

Joe shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Bo- Penance. I think I’m just a little on edge right now.”

Penance shook it off, laughing that Angel already knew his identity so who really cared about his name, while Nicky spent that time studying Joe.

He’d seemed fine on their date, happy even. He was a little tense when Nicky got to the scene of the shootout - guns tend to do that to people, no matter how many times you’ve encountered them - but that had all melted away by the time he’d landed next to them. 

The thing that switched his mood, then, must have been Booker’s comment. But Joe had never been so upset by Booker being in danger - there was something about Penance’s relationship with death that he’d hinted at but never explained, something that meant a regular death might not stick anyhow - so it couldn’t be that, right? 

Penance walked away with a slap to Joe’s shoulder, probably to find Copycat somewhere, leaving Nicky and Joe alone in the aftermath.

“Are you okay?” Nicky asked, trying and failing to read Joe’s expression, “Truly?”

Joe let out a heavy sigh. He ran a hand over his face, stopping at his beard to scratch at his chin in a nervous gesture. “Yeah, Angel, I just-” He stopped, sighing again, all the tension dropping from his body like lead. “It just reminded me of how dangerous this job is. Everytime we go out one of us could be killed. We’re not invincible - well, not most of us anyway.”

They both glanced towards The Scythian, who was strutting out of the nearest building with two large men thrown over her shoulders. The Mafiosos, if Nicky had to guess, trussed up like pigs in more zip-ties than Nicky had thought Andy could reasonably carry in leather pants with no pockets.

Nicky glanced back at Joe, his mood suddenly making sense. “You’re afraid for your boyfriend.”

Joe’s gaze snapped back to Nicky. “What?”

“Your civilian boyfriend you mentioned...Luca?” Nicky picked his cousin’s name at random, to give himself some more plausible deniability. “He can’t defend himself. I understand.”

Joe stared for a second, seemingly taking in Nicky’s words. “Nico. His name is Nico.”

Nicky nodded. “Right. Our job is dangerous. You’re afraid he might get hurt.”

“I,” Joe sighed, nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I guess I am. He’s just...so headstrong, you know? With what I do, what  _ we _ do, I’m afraid he might get himself into some trouble I can’t get him out of, one day.”

If there was one thing Nicky didn’t need, it was Joe hovering because he thought Nico was in mortal danger all the time. That would make keeping his tenuous identity secret even harder than it was now.

“He’s survived this long without you protecting him, right? He’ll be fine, Solar Flare.”

Joe looked out at the scene around them, blanketed in men wriggling at their restraints, with even more lying unconscious on the ground. It was far from peaceful, but at least it was mostly safe. “He’s never had these problems, though. I bring danger with me wherever I go, since the world knows my name. He’s never had to deal with that before.  _ I’ve _ never had to deal with someone else having to deal with that before.”

Nicky frowned. “You’ve never had a boyfriend before?” he asked, even though he knew the answer to be a firm  _ no _ .

Joe shook his head. “Nothing serious. No one I would worry about so much. So much more than any regular civilian, that is.”

They had only been on two dates, Nicky reminded himself. One and a half, really, and Nicky was already throwing caution out the window and Joe was already worrying himself sick over dragging Nico into his life. God, they were a pair.

“He also knows who you are. He knows what he’s getting into, Flare.”

“That’s true.” Joe’s spirits seemed to lift at that, a little. “You’re right, he’s a grown man, he understands the situation.”

Nicky nodded, clapping Joe on the shoulder. “Glad you’re feeling better.”

Joe barked out a laugh, smiling up at Nicky. “Oh, I’m still gonna worry about him constantly, but I’m just not going to feel so inescapably guilty over it anymore.”

Nicky rolled his eyes, walking towards the rest of The Guard, who were starting a light debrief while they waited for the police.

Joe jogged to keep up. “You know, Angel,” He said as he caught up to walk right next to Nicky, “These past few days you’ve said the most words I think I’ve ever gotten out of you. Maybe I should have existential crises more often.”

Nicky laughed internally, externally giving Joe a flat look. “Please don’t. You’re much better than I am at comforting people.”

“I don’t know, malaki, you did a pretty good job. Don’t sell yourself short.”

Joe flashed Nicky one of his heart-stopping blinding smiles, making Nicky’s chest seize up, before sprinting to join his team.

This man will be the death of him.

Nicky joins them a few seconds later, assessing the area as he internally prods at all the rings he still has active, making sure they’re holding tight so no one will surprise them. His visions were comfortingly quiet, anyhow.

“Angel, you did great work out there today,” The Scythian smiled at him, toothy like a shark, “I hear you saved us a lot of trouble.”

Copycat bumped him with her shoulder. “Yeah dude, without you half of us would be toast.”

“You would have figured it out,” Nick assured them with a quick tilt of his head.

“All the same, it’s nice having you,” The Scythian replied, sounding more like Andy with her casual tone than she usually allowed in costume.

“Yeah, it’d be nice to have you on a regular basis, too,” Penance added gruffly, almost joking.

That familiar fear crept up on Nicky again. “You know I can’t.”

The Guard, after Lykon, had rules for their members. None of them were particularly difficult for Nicky to follow, - two of the three were, in The Scythian’s words, “Don’t be stupid and don’t do illegal shit” - but it was the last one that gave him pause.

Lykon was young. Too young. He kept too many secrets, and that cost them in the end. If they had known, maybe things would have ended differently. Maybe they would have mentored him more, or kept a closer eye on him. They at least would have been prepared for the news to break, that they’d been enabling a child in the dangerous work that would eventually kill him. That couldn’t happen again.

So the last, and in Nicky’s eyes most important, rule was that The Scythian, if not all the members, had to know your secret identity.

Nicky couldn’t let that happen again. He could only barely handle the possibility of telling Joe, the man he’d been half in love with for years and trusted more than his own family, let alone Andy, who he knew next to nothing about. He’d gone down that path once before, and gotten nothing but trouble and a guilt complex to rival that which he still carried over from regular Catholicism. It wasn’t something he thought he could ever do again.

The Scythian leveled him a steely look, reminding Nicky of why exactly this small frail-looking woman was so intimidating when she put her mind to it. She clenched her fists, opening her mouth like she was going to say something particularly scathing, but stopped instead to look down at one of her leather arm bracers. It was more navy than black, Nicky knew, almost out of place with the rest of her costume. It had belonged to Tide, once upon a time.

Nicky missed Tide dearly, they all did, but she had been right to leave. To have the very thing that gave her strength be used against her so violently… they all understood why she left the life. That didn’t mean they didn’t miss her fiercely.

“Fine.” The Scythian pulled herself up, making herself look even taller and more intimidating. “We have to go debrief, then. I trust you can handle the clean up on your own.”

She walked off without another word, prompting Penance and Copycat to follow. Joe paused, on a threshold as he always was when they talked about Angel’s identity.

“I know you have good reason for your reservations, Angel,” Joe said, eyes kind, “But just know that none of us would use that information against you, no matter what. We know who you are, inside. That’s all that really matters.”

Joe turned and left before Nicky could come up with a response. If only he knew, Nicky thought, maybe he wouldn’t be so flippant. Then again, that would require telling him all of it, of Padre Antioco, of the church and all the people back home. How he let himself be so easily fooled. How stupid he had been.

No, it’s better this way. As much as he loved working with The Guard, they were better off without him officially in their ranks. They didn’t need to be burdened with his past.

Nicky let himself believe he could be content with that, for a little longer at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In writing these descriptions of languages I’ve half-convinced myself to start learning monegasque, the monaco dialect of genoese, bc four languages isn’t enough for me I suppose. *insert shrug emoji*


	4. You’re A Sunset Framed Upon My Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title paraphrased from Parachute, by the Limousines of course. The exact line is “I’m a sunset framed and nailed up on the wall” but I feel like this fits a little better. Anyway, I want one more chunk of fluff before we pile on the Plot and things, so that’s what this is. There’s also a minor time jump here, just to keep us moving along.

The first thought that popped into Nicky’s head when he pressed on the buzzer, irrationally, was that he’d never been to a superhero’s house before.

It was a ridiculous thought - he was also a superhero, of sorts, and his flat unfortunately looked like it belonged to a particularly chaotic frat boy most days - but with Joe it felt...different. He was established, well-loved by the press and civilians alike, backed by an actual team. He got paid by the city for his work, as a legitimate public service member. He had his face on bags in Macy’s, for god’s sake. All Angel had was a tenuous alliance with The Guard and a mostly neutral impact on the news cycles - something he strived very hard to maintain.

For some reason, those thoughts preoccupied him more than the fact that he was here, at Joe’s apartment, for the first date at either of their homes. That was a big step, he knew, but one he felt comfortable taking after the few weeks of coffee meet-ups and walks around the park and late-night bar talks. A small part of him still felt a little guilty that he hadn’t told Joe yet, that he was walking into the man’s sanctuary while still withholding a part of himself.

The larger, saner part of him told him that Angel had been invited to Joe’s apartment many times for post-fight beers or the like, so it really wasn’t an invasion of privacy. Mostly.

Before he could work himself up too much, Joe appeared at the door with a grin on his face big enough to rival the sun. He was wearing a soft white t-shirt and jeans, bare feet flexing on the tile floors. He looked just as beautiful as every time Nicky saw him.

“Hey habibi,” Joe gave Nicky a once-over, winking once he’d reached Nicky’s face again. “Looking good.”

Nicky, who had chosen a flannel and khakis at random to change into after work, could only thrust forward the grocery bags in his hands. “I brought what you asked.”

“Wonderful, thank you.” Joe leaned in for a kiss, lingering only a moment longer than usual. “Come on in, pretend to be subtle and explore while I get everything set up.”

Nicky huffed a small laugh. “Thank you for the permission.”

He stepped through the doorway, marvelling at the space inside. It was large and open, with floor to ceiling windows on the far wall, bookshelves on one side of the main room and a half-wall leading to the kitchen opposite the fireplace. There was no bed or bathroom anywhere in sight, nor were there any doors or hallways.

Nicky frowned, looking to the bookcases as he absent-mindedly adjusted his glasses. There was a curved scratch in the floor in front of one of them, almost as if… “Yusuf?”

“Yes, my dear?” Joe answered from the kitchen, the crinkling of bags pausing for a moment. Joe had started using such endearments around date three, but it still made Nicky’s heart flutter every time.

“Do you have a secret door installed in your bookcase?”

Joe snorted, the crinkling continuing. “Yes, actually. I’m a heavy sleeper, so it’s a little safer if anyone decides to break in - not that they have, but you can never be too careful.”

“Huh.” Nicky toed at the scratch in the floor. The books all looked normal enough, but there were a few of them stacked sideways towards the end opposite where the hinges must be. Nicky felt around the bottom of the shelf above the stack, fingers running over a large metal button. He left it, for now. Joe would show him if he wanted Nicky to see.

“How do your guests use the bathroom?” Nicky asked, eyeing the rest of the books. There were dozens of biographies and just as many mass-market science fiction paperbacks, but a majority of the books were thin bindings of poetry collections, with a few heavy anthologies lodged in between.

“As much as I joke, I don’t actually have many people over here,” Joe answered, still in the kitchen, “Really only family and the The Guard. Not even Angel comes here, though I have invited him a few times.”

It never stopped feeling odd, hearing Joe talk about his other persona like a different person. It didn’t happen that often - for some reason, Joe shied away from mentioning Angel in most contexts, though he did acknowledge their friendship was on par with the rest of The Guard. Nicky might be jealous if the circumstances were different.

He kept moving, settling near a record player on one of the bookshelves closer to the wall. A discordant array of records sat on the shelf next to it - The Spinners, Muse, the Official My Fair Lady soundtrack, The Best of Russian Ballet, a few indie bands Nicky didn’t recognize - all organized in a system Nicky couldn’t put his finger on, but vaguely understood.

Picking up a record at random, Nicky carefully slid the vinyl out of the sleeve. The record player was already turned on and ready, so it was simple to place the record down and set the needle to the start of the first song. He recognized the beat, had heard it on the radio sometimes. Come Together by The Beatles, he remembered. The lyrics didn’t make sense to him when he first heard it, but he’d chalked that up to a shaky grasp on the English language. Hearing them again, he realised they simply didn’t make sense.

Nicky hummed along, letting his gaze wander from the bookshelves to the expansive prints and canvases hung along the walls. Some were recognizable - the ceiling of the Blue Mosque, some baroque paintings Nicky had seen in his infrequent visits to the Metro - but others were...different. All by the same artist, probably, given the similar style amongst them all, but Nicky had never seen anything like them before. They were almost burning in their intensity, creating shadows even through bright sea greens and yellows.

“Who is all the art by?” Nicky asked. He heard the stove click on, felt the soft padding of Joe along the floorboards until the man himself stepped up behind Nicky, hooking his chin over Nicky’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around Nicky’s waist. It was warm and wonderful and nearly too distracting.

Joe hummed, sending vibrations through the tendons in Nicky’s neck straight to his heart. “A few different artists. Artemisia Gentileschi, Salam Toor, Jackee Sandelands-Strom,” Joe listed off, pointing out which painting belonged to which artist as he went. He curiously left out the paintings Nicky was actually curious about, the ones with the breath-taking radiance.

“And this one?” Nicky looked pointedly at the nearest painting to them. Rings of green and blue and bright near-white golds circumnavigated each other loosely around patterns Nicky vaguely remembered were called fractals. Quynh would call it psychedelic, probably, but Nicky just thought it was other-worldly. Enrapturing.

The scratch of Joe’s beard against the soft skin of his neck pulled Nicky’s attention back to the man behind him. Joe was hiding his face in the junction of Nicky’s shoulder, mumbling something Nicky’ couldn’t make out.

“Scuzi?”

Joe sighed, the hot breath on Nicky’s neck making him shiver. “I said, those are mine. I painted them.”

Nicky focused back on the painting in front of him, seeing it through his new perspective. He could imagine Joe sitting in this room, jeans rolled up and paint all over his shirt as he sat on a stool in front of his canvas, comparing the colors as he looped effortless rings around the canvas with his paintbrush. He thought of the colors staining Joe’s fingers, flecks of that gold in his beard.

He swallowed roughly.

“It’s gorgeous, Joe,” He said, unable to tear his eyes away from the canvas, “What was the inspiration?”

Joe froze against his back. “Um, I don’t remember, really. I painted it a few years ago.”

There was something Joe wasn’t saying. Nicky could tell, after years of working together and now weeks of dating, when he was lying. Then again, Nicky had his own secrets he was keeping from Joe, so he would be pretty hypocritical if he didn’t let Joe have his own.

He looked away from the painting, turning in Joe’s arms so they were facing each other. “What’s the status on the popcorn, then?”

Joe let out a breath, eyes softening in a way that still made Nicky’s heart clench tight in his chest. “On the stove, working towards popping, presumably. Any suggestions on flavours?”

Nicky frowned. “Flavours?”

“You know, flavours,” Joe frowned back, “I have a bunch of little powdered flavours, like ranch or white cheddar or bacon. Which do you want?”

“Please tell me you’re not serious, Yusuf.”

Joe laughed, somewhat surprised. “It’s just premade spices, Nico. I don’t see the big deal!”

“Spices? I’m Italian, Joe!” Nicky pulled away, feeling the need to use his hands to gesticulate, “Spices are peppers, we flavour things with fresh parsley, basil. I grew up in my Nonna’s kitchen, making everything from scratch. While I may have lapsed on such things, just slightly, I put my foot down at  _ flavouring _ my popcorn with  _ artificial powders _ !”

Throughout his tirade, Joe’s smile continuously got wider.

Nicky huffed. “What’s so amusing, Yusuf?”

Joe stepped back towards Nicky, sliding his hands over Nicky’s hips. “You are, darling, with your very pointed thoughts on cheap popcorn flavors.” He started swaying to the beat of the music, pulling Nicky in closer to follow with him. “Your passion is inspiring, as always.”

Their eyes met, and all the fight drained out of Nicky. “So we agree not to add your nonsense to the popcorn?”

Joe laughed, loud and bright and using his whole chest. It was a sound Nicky wanted to consume, to drown in, to bury inside his veins. “You can do what you like, habibi. My popcorn will taste like Nacho Cheddar.”

Nicky spluttered, but Joe cut off the sound with a kiss so gentle and soft that it expelled any arguments from Nicky’s head. He was sure that was the intention.

They continued to dance slowly, stepping back and forth as they swayed to the music. Joe’s bare feet brushed into Nicky’s sock-clad ones every few steps, making him feel more keenly the way Joe’s skin rose in temperature every time he was near Nicky.

Suddenly Joe was pulling back, grabbing Nicky’s hand and twirling him around clumsily. Nicky laughed and went along, crashing back into Joe’s chest afterwards. “I’m not sure this is a song that lends itself to twirling, Yusuf.”

Joe smiled, planting a quick kiss to the tip of Nicky’s nose. “Every time our eyes meet is a song. Every press of our lips is a poem. I could write novels on the spaces between your fingers, the curve of your nose when you smile. You, Nicolò di Genova, could rival any symphony.”

Joe was looking so intently into Nicky’s eyes that it almost hurt. He looked away quickly, though he couldn’t stop the soft smile that spread across his lips, or the way his heart skipped a beat. “That doesn’t change the fact that this song is about murdering people with hammers.”

Joe’s laughter burst out of his chest with little resistance. “No, no I suppose it doesn’t.”

He stepped back, ending the dance far before Nicky wanted. He could be held in Joe’s arms forever and be perfectly content.

“Shall we go check on the popcorn?” Joe asked, hands returning to his pockets.

Nicky couldn’t help but feel that he did something wrong, ruined a moment that was building up to something Nicky couldn’t see. He looked up to Joe, who was now almost nervous, keeping his distance from Nicky, even as he leaned in like he was physically keeping himself from falling into Nicky’s arms.

He probably took Nicky’s avoidance as him being uncomfortable with the romance, the closeness. There was no way to tell him the truth - that everything he said made Nicky’s heart yearn for Joe’s, that he wanted nothing more than to spend lifetimes hearing his poetry whenever Joe decided to give it - without explaining why he shied away from the eye contact, why he stopped himself from reciprocating Joe’s tender words.  _ Nico _ didn’t have a secret identity to keep.  _ Nico _ had no excuses.

Nicky stepped forward, pressing a quick kiss to Joe’s forehead as he walked towards the kitchen in a semblance of an apology. “We shall.”

Joe followed quickly after brushing shoulders and hands with Nicky comfortably. He must have understood, on some level, what Nicky was trying to say. Nicky himself didn’t know, so he was glad Joe seemed to have figured it out.

As soon as they got close to the stove Nicky knew the popcorn was burnt. He was too distracted to notice before, but the entire apartment was starting to gain that acidic carbon smell that always followed a dinner left to charcoal.

Joe opened the pot on the stove, releasing another gust of burnt smell, then immediately put the lid back on, shutting off the stove. He turned to Nicky with an apologetic grimace. “Looks like any flavour of popcorn may be off the menu.”

“Grazie a Dio per quello,” Nicky said with barely a thought.

Something on Joe’s face changed. Nicky couldn’t place it, exactly. 

“Right, well,” Joe cleared his throat, “I have a plethora of other snack options, in any case. Chocolates and crackers and things. Maybe some wine, even, that Booker left last time he was here.”

Nicky only just stopped himself from questioning who “Booker” was, even jokingly, given Joe had never mentioned Penance by his real name before. Joe seemed to be so off-balance tonight already, Nicky didn’t need to add to that. “If you have any cheese I can put together a charcuterie platter of sorts. No cured meats, or course, but cheese and crackers and possibly some fresh fruits?” He moved into the kitchen, eyeing the loaf of artisanal bread on the counter. “I could make some bruschetta, even, if you have any fresh tomatoes.”

Joe smiled, snorting softly. “I can’t even make popcorn properly, and yet you’re prepared to make a four course meal at the drop of a hat.”

“Hazards of growing up in Italy, I suppose.” Nicky gestured to the fridge. “May I?”

“Of course.” Joe waved his permission, leaning his hips against the countertop. “What’s mine is yours, hayati.”

There was a tentative sort of silence hanging in the air as Nicky gathered his ingredients - he’d decided on both a bruschetta and a charcuterie board with the cheese and crackers, so he gathered up some fresh tomatoes and garlic, a few different types of cheese, jarred olives, and copious amounts of olive oil. It wasn’t until he was searching for a cutting board that Joe spoke up.

“You’ve never talked about Italy before, what it was like there,” Joe said, fingers thrumming along the edge of the counter, “You don’t have to, of course, but I’d love to hear it. Anything you'd like to give, I’ll take happily.”

Nicky didn’t respond at first, setting out his ingredients measuredly.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell Joe. He did, desperately, if only to purge it from his soul, to confess his sins and lay them out in the light of day to be judged. It was the Catholic in him, he supposed, the little boy that still lived in his bones that yearned for those he held in high regard to see him, all of him, and decide what he should do about it, where he should go. It was the aftereffects of Padre Antioco, haunting him over his shoulder, urging him to confess, to bring to bear his baser sins, to cleanse them from his internal soul.

Catholic guilt aside, he didn’t want to keep any more secrets from Joe than he had to. This, though - Italy, the church, his family - all of that sat uncomfortably close in his heart to the place that held his darker memories, the shadows of his past.

He sighed, biting the bullet. He would start with something simple.

“I have a brother, two sisters,” he said, busying his hands with chopping the tomatoes and transferring them to a bowl. “Achille and Marietta are ten and seven years my senior, then Ileana is a few years younger. My mother was a nurse, long ago. My father works in exports.”

Joe didn’t reply, just jumped to sit on top of the counter, getting comfortable. That was as clear an invitation to keep going as Nicky could imagine, he supposed.

“Do you have a broiler?” he asked, instead. He needed a moment to figure out what to tell and what to keep hidden. It was much harder to lie to someone you cared for, he knew. One of the many reasons he didn’t - couldn’t - speak to his family anymore.

“Yeah, under the oven,” Joe replied, graciously allowing Nicky his space.

Nicky thanked him by starting once again.

“Achille was looking to take over the family business, last I checked. My father was grooming him to do so, anyhow. Marietta was studying to become a professor of religion. Ileana became a, how do you say, giocatore di calcio? Soccer player.”

Joe hummed, watching as Nicky sliced the bread and put it in the broiler for a few minutes.

Nicky sighed. “What I remember most is the time in the kitchen,” he revealed, placing his palms flat on the counter for just a moment, “Learning to cook at my Nonna’s side, helping my mother with the salads and rolling the pasta dough. Normally such things would be reserved for Marietta, the oldest daughter, but she could burn water. She was almost as bad as you, in the kitchen.”

Joe feigned hurt at that, dramatically slapping a hand to his chest. “I can boil water. Mostly.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. He grabbed a large bowl, tossing together the tomatoes with some dried herbs - not as good as fresh, but more than he honestly expected from Joe’s kitchen - with garlic and olive oil. “Ileana could never sit still long enough to learn. She was always running around, bothering Achille and gathering the neighborhood kids to play games she’d created.” He smiled at the memories of watching through the kitchen window as Ileana pretended to slay dragons with kids of all ages, the smell of fresh bread and basil floating through the air. “There was never a dull moment, to be sure.”

“What happened?”

Nicky froze, chills running up his spine. He pushed back the images of his sister, forlorn when she caught him packing in the middle of the night. Padre Antioco’s voice echoed in his head.  _ They’re better off not knowing, angelletto. They’ll only hold you back from your  _ **_mission_ ** .

“Nico?” Joe’s voice sounded reedy. Concerned.

“What makes you think something happened?” Nicky choked out as casually as he could. He was sure the tenseness in his throat wasn’t lost on Joe.

Joe took a second before responding. “You only use the past tense, when talking about them.”

Nicky paused, taking a breath. He pushed down the panic, the grief and guilt. It was the only way, at the time. It was probably still the only way. “I had to leave. They wouldn’t, well. They were very vocal about how much they disagreed with the existence of people like me.”

Joe made an understanding noise. “Homophobic, huh? That’s terrible, Nico. I’m so sorry.”

Nicky didn’t correct him, didn’t point out that whether or not they would react to that badly remains to be seen, that he left so they wouldn’t try to exorcise the devil from him that gave him his powers, his haloes, as Joe so blasphemously called them.

“Yes, well.” Nicky cleared his throat. “I never told them, I just left. It seemed safer at the time, but I think looking back I might have felt better had I at least given them the chance to reject me, so I would know for sure.”

They definitely would have kicked him out regardless, but it seems like the thing he should say. The thing he  _ would _ say if it were simply a matter of his sexuality.

“You could reach out now, as a measure of good faith if nothing else.” 

Nicky couldn’t bring himself to look at Joe. “I’ve kept so much from them now...I don’t think I could. It’s only good faith if you’re on the same playing field.”

In the next moment Joe was behind him, pressing his forehead to the back of Nicky’s neck, his hands on Nicky’s hips. “I’m sorry, Nico. I wish I could help.”

“You can,” Nicky turned to face him, careful not to transfer any of the oil on his fingers to Joe’s clothes, “by taking the bread from the broiler and opening up a box of crackers.”

Joe smiled, planting a soft kiss on Nicky’s cheek. “Sir, yes sir.”

As Joe moved away, Nicky took a much needed breath, steadying himself.

“Speaking of family,” Joe said, conversationally as he grabbed the pan of bread from the broiler with his bare hands, “I’m headed out to visit mine in a few days.”

Nicky took that for the olive branch it was. “Oh? Any special reason?”

“Nadia, the baby of the family, is about to have her own baby. I’m supposed to go help out or something, but mostly I just think they miss me all the way across the sea.” Joe fanned the crackers out on a cutting board, turning to lean his hip against the counter once again. “I’m mostly going to make fun of my brothers in person, so I can’t really blame them.”

That was something siblings did, Nicky knew vaguely, poke fun at each other. He’d never really had that experience, with Ileana being the youngest and therefore the most doted on of the family and both Achille and Mariette being so much older.

“When will you be back?” Nicky hoped he didn’t sound as put-out as he felt.

“A week or so. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone for too long, habibi.”

Nicky spread the tomato mixture over the toasted bread, placing the bruschette on the board alongside the crackers and some various cheese slices.

Joe looked down at the board. “You know, I could have toasted the bread for you,” He said, conjuring a small flame with a snap of his fingers.

“No, no way,” Nicky shot back immediately, “You burned popcorn. I am officially banning you from the kitchen from now on.”

Joe stuck his bottom lip out in a pout. “At least let me pick the movie then, after breaking my heart so carelessly.”

Nicky rolled his eyes, taking the cutting board full of snacks to the living room. “That depends on what you pick.”

Joe jumped over the sofa, landing on the cushions in a sprawl. “Oh, I don’t know. I was feeling something sappy. Definitely Maybe?”

“Definitely maybe what?” Nicky asked, placing the charcuterie spread on the coffee table.

Joe gasped dramatically. “Nicolò, my darling, we absolutely must watch it now. No arguments.”

Nicky shrugged, shoving Joe’s feet off the couch so he could sit. Joe countered by slinging an arm around Nicky’s shoulders, pretending that the move didn’t make it ridiculously awkward to grab the remote, or the bruschetta, or do much of anything. Nicky pretended too, for entirely selfish reasons.

He snuggled up into Joe’s chest, reveling in the sound of Joe’s heartbeat under his ear. Joe slung a blanket over the two of them as the movie started, complaining loudly about how Nicky was never prepared for the cold. They only barely watched the movie, spending more time poking holes in the plot and adding unnecessary commentary. Every once in a while, Joe asked Nicky to grab him a bruschetta, proceeding to eat it straight out of Nicky’s fingers as Nicky studiously avoided Joe’s gaze so he couldn’t see the blush overtake his cheeks.

The only recurring thought through Nicky’s brain - popping up every few minutes every time Joe made a dumb comment just to make Nicky laugh, or tried to throw a piece of cheese at Nicky when he pointed out that Joe would act just like the main love interest, or even when he just remembered, unbidden, all the events that led up to him being here, laying half across Joe’s body as they cuddled and watched sappy romcoms in his apartment - was this:  _ I could live like this forever _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a playlist on spotify I made of all the songs mentioned/played throughout the fic along with a few that just give off The Vibes, you know, if anyone is interested. Really, let’s be honest here, is it really a gay fanfic including a guy with fire powers if you don’t listen to Burnin Up by the Jonas Brothers on repeat? Yeah, didn’t think so.  
> Also, the artists on Joe’s wall are courtesy of the TOG discord, specifically Kat and KD. The records are off my own record collection, which, like Joe’s, is organized on a scale of Bops to Jams.  
> The song about murdering people with hammers is Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, off the B-side of The Beatles’ Abbey Road


	5. We Might Be Sprawled Out On The Floor But We Still Make Lovely Company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from Very Busy People. Weird song, very catchy. Ever since I first heard it I’ve been looking for a place to fit “crank call the cops down at the station just for friendly conversation requesting songs they’ll never play” into SOMETHING and I’m very sad to say I still have yet to manage it.

“Since when do you cook?”

Quynh was sitting on his kitchen counter, legs swinging back and forth to knock her heels against the cabinets.

Nicky shrugged, poking at the vegetables in his pan. He truly did enjoy cooking, despite the bittersweet memories the act unsurfaced, but he simply never had the time anymore, with work and patrols and hanging out with Quynh and Joe. But now, having Joe around - a man who would probably have burned his apartment down by now with his misguided kitchens adventures if he couldn’t literally control the flames - Nicky found himself in the kitchen more often than not, treating Joe to any number of traditional Italian recipes that still had a home in his heart.

He ducked his head, still staring at his pan pointedly. “Now I have someone to cook for.”

Quynh cooed. “Aw, that’s sweet. I’m a little offended that I don’t count as a person here, but that was actually really adorable.”

He couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face, but he could hide it in the steam floating off his broccoli. 

“You’re really smitten, huh?” Quynh sipped at the glass of wine she’d poured the moment she came in. “It’s been what, a month, and you’re already learning to cook elaborate meals for the guy?”

“Don’t you have your own relationship to get invested in, or is Andy out cavorting again?”

Quynh snorted into her glass. “Cavorting, huh? You could call it that I guess. She’s working tonight. One of her coworkers is out for the week so she’s taking some extra hours.”

Nicky hummed. “And what does she do again?”

A month ago, he never would have been so bold. But now, after so much time spent talking with Joe about his superheroing, being happy and feeling lighter than he has in years, his reservations were laxing at the edges.

Nicky didn’t have to turn around to know Quynh was frozen in place. “She does freelance. Investigations. Private eye stuff, you know.”

He had to give her props, that was pretty close to the truth. “Right, sure.” He didn’t point out that a private investigator would have no business working with Sebastien and Nile - a bookstore owner and an art student - but he let her off the hook with that one. He was too deliriously content to bring about the energy to needle her on it.

“I really am, you know.”

“You are what? Neglecting your best friend by withholding your new and wonderful cooking skills?”

Nicky chuckled. “Smitten. With Joe.”

Quynh nodded gently, the corners of her smile turning down just slightly. “I know, Nico.” She sighed, jumping off the counter to bump her shoulder against Nicky’s own. Or, more his bicep, given the difference in their heights. “I’m glad you found someone to share your life with.”

Nicky froze, staring at the top of her head as she hummed and snuck vegetables from the pan. “That’s…” he struggled to find the right words. “While I am enamored with Joe, true, I’m not exactly sure we’re ready to ‘share our lives.’ That’s a bit fast, Quynh.”

The thing was, Nicky wanted to share  _ everything _ with Joe, desperately. He found himself reaching out for Joe after a bad day or a good one, just to hear his voice or his laugh or his gentle reassurances. He wanted to come home to find Joe laying upside-down on the couch reading, or sitting on the ground cross-legged hunched over a sketch, or trying (and failing) to bake something in the kitchen. He wanted to talk about his job at the lab or his job on the streets, tell Joe about the old lady he saved from a mugger or the cat he saved from a tree or the car jackers he took down. He wanted to share everything with Joe, from his life to his bed, but he couldn’t, in good conscience, do so if Joe didn’t know who he was. He couldn’t lie to Joe, not if they got that close, but he couldn’t justify himself spilling all his secrets just yet. 

It was an agonizing position to be in, but Nicky knew he inflicted it upon himself. Sometimes he wished he could be like Joe, open and proud of his identity, but he knew it wasn’t possible. Not after last time.

Quynh hummed around a bit of carrot. “When you know, you know. Me and Andy moved in after a month, in typical lesbian fashion I know, but we just...clicked.” She shrugged. “The only thing that matters here is how you feel. Joe doesn’t date, really, or spend time with civilians very often outside of me, and Andy I guess. You’re clearly special to him. I don’t think anything short of proposing would be too fast for him, so it’s on you how slow you want to take this, I think.”

Nicky focused back on his dinner, letting that sink in. He did notice, over their dates, that Joe only ever talked about Sebastien and Nile and Andy, very rarely Quynh or anyone without powers. To Joe, Nicky was another civilian, which was clearly in the minority with his friends. But did that really mean Nicky was special, or did it just mean that Joe didn’t like to date supers? And if it was the latter, how would Nicky explain that if ( _ when _ ) he told Joe the truth.

All these hypotheticals gave him a headache. He switched off the burners, mixing his pot of rice with his sauteed vegetables. There was more than enough for both him and Quynh - he spent too many nights patrolling and accidentally forgetting not to eat to not stock as many leftovers as he could on his rare nights off - so he plated two portions and brought them over to the table.

He still hadn’t replied to Quynh, but he didn’t think she minded. She was used to his silence, and often filled it by humming whatever song was stuck in her head, usually off-key. This time it was something Nicky only vaguely recognized, soft and slow.

“What song is that?” He asked as he sat down, motioning for Quynh to do the same.

“Thanks, Nico,” she said as plopped into the chair across from him, “It’s an old Alicia Keys song I heard on the radio the other day. Something about diaries.”

Nicky shrugged. It didn’t ring a bell.

They tucked into their food quietly, the silence gentle and comfortable. He missed nights spent digging into cartons of Chinese food while watching shitty reality TV shows on his couch. They hadn’t hung out, really, since Nicky started hanging out with Joe. Nicky suspects that Quynh wanted to give him time to get to know Joe - she made a habit of meddling in his affairs whenever the chance presented itself - which he was grateful for, but he also missed his best friend. He didn’t get to see her often enough already, since he spent most nights out on patrol, so outside of work he hadn’t seen Quynh at all except for a double date here and there.

“It’s nice having you over again, Quynh. It’s been too long.”

Quynh grinned up at him, still half-hunched over her plate. “Aw, that’s sweet. It’s weird not having Joe around, though. You two are practically attached at the hip now.”

His heart panged in his chest at the thought of how long Joe would be gone. A week at least, which wasn’t much in the long run but felt like an eternity to him. “His family needs him. I won’t get in the way of that.”

“No, I get it,” Quynh said, leaning back from her mostly empty plate. “I just remember what happened last time  _ I _ left for a while. Andy said you didn’t do anything but work and sleep for days without me around to force you to socialize. I just hope that doesn’t happen again, you know?”

Nicky, who planned to do exactly that until Joe came back, dropped his gaze into his food.

Quynh chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, okay. Changing the subject.” She stood and placed her empty plate in the sink. “Did you get that new security brief? Some new dude took over as Security Head, Keane or something. I didn’t read it all, but I do know that dude needs to take a serious chill pill.”

“Keane?” Nicky asked, doing his best not to let Quynh in on his minor freakout.

He didn’t hear her answer, occupied instead with thoughts of the burner phone he grabbed off an arms dealer when he’d first started dating Joe. The name stuck in the back of his mind - he never was capable of giving up on a puzzle - but he could never find any strong leads. Until now.

It wasn’t that it was a particularly uncommon name - 1 in around 24 thousand in the US, last Nicky checked - but none of the Keane’s he’d found had any ties to anything that could be related to illegal arms dealings. Not of this caliber, anyhow. Not enough to be the only name in the phone of a highly trained small army of mercenaries that seemed to be popping up more and more often lately.

Except, maybe, this one.

“He’s new?” Nicky heard himself asking, “Do you know what he did before this?”

Quynh gave him a weird look. “Some private security thing, before that the army. Why?”

The first real lead he might have in a month, and it happened at his own job? That couldn’t be a coincidence.

He resolved to look into it later.

“No reason,” he said, so as to not make Quynh even more suspicious, “What do you think Joe is doing right now?”

“Oh, so the new mean security man is just a bad distraction from pondering your beloved, huh,” Quynh intoned with more drama than Nicky thought was really necessary.

Regardless, Nicky looked away. He really did want to talk about Joe, even though he knew he probably shouldn’t. He’d spent all his time with Joe lately, and next to nothing with Quynh. He should be focused more on her.

Then again, Joe was home in Tunisia. On a beach. Probably swimming in the tiny speedo he’d sent a picture of to Nicky as he was packing to leave.

“You’re thinking about him in that tiny speedo, aren’t you?”

Nicky flinched hard. Did she have telepathy and not tell him? If there was one thing Quynh  _ didn’t _ need it was a way to read people’s thoughts. That way lies danger. “What?”

Quynh laughed, pulling out her phone to tap at the screen for a few seconds. “I forgot, you don’t do social media. He posted a picture on instagram this morning.”

She turned her screen towards Nicky, and... _ oh _ . That was so much better than he’d imagined.

Joe was standing knee-deep in the ocean, holding a man much taller than him in a headlock as they both laughed, making the muscles in his arms and chest and abs jump out in sharp relief, damp and dripping with seawater. Then there was the swimsuit. The tiny black speedo with cartoon flames on it that only just barely covered everything. And there was, Nicky almost stopped breathing when he saw,  _ very much _ to see. So much that the flames in front looked much larger, stretched out as they were over quite a...noticeable bulge.

“ _ Cazzo _ ,” Nicky breathed, eyes glued to the screen.

Quynh laughed even harder, taking her phone back to turn it off. “Missing the beach there, buddy?” She teased, emphasis on the word beach. “You haven’t been home in a while, huh?”

Nicky shook his head, mostly to clear his thoughts on what, exactly, Joe was hiding in his swimsuit, and just how much he wanted to get his hands inside Joe’s terribly patterned bottoms to see for himself.

“Nico?” Quynh prompted. Her knowing smile was growing by the second.

“Oh, um,” he cleared his throat, “Yes, well. The people, I never cared for. The ocean, however? The waves bigger than your entire body, the smell of salt and the way the water carves away at the cliffsides… The beaches here are too tame, too many people. There’s nowhere to truly get yourself lost in the ocean, here.”

Quynh shivered visibly. Nicky almost got up to grab her a blanket, but she stopped him with a hand on his. “It’s fine, I just. I try not to get near water, actually. Bad memories.”

Nicky’s eyes widened. He didn’t know much about Quynh’s life - just like she didn’t know much about his - but he didn’t think she had such a clear aversion to something that Nicky, by all means, considered the largest part of his childhood.

He sat back, letting her settle again, and resolved not to bring it up again.

It took her a long moment, but she finally came back to herself with a heaving sigh. “Maybe we should watch a show or something, yeah?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My pick this time,” She lunged towards the living room, pulling up Netflix on his TV before Nicky even had the chance to put his dishes in the sink.

“Sure, as long as it is not Constantine again.”

As much as he loved hanging out with Quynh, she did have abysmally bad taste in TV shows.

Quynh cackled evilly.

Nicky took a long sip of wine as he moved to get some popcorn going in the microwave. Knowing Quynh, most of it would end up on the floor after she threw it at him or the screen or just failed catching them in her mouth. He smiled gently at the thought. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

  
  


There was, Nicky knew well by now, a concerning rise in highly proficient armed vandals infecting New York lately. While it was bad for him and his ribs, certainly, it was much worse for the poor civilians trapped in the crossfire.

It wasn’t even the police, this time, that tipped him off. He wasn’t even on duty, per se.

He’d just said goodbye to Quynh at work, and was unlocking his bike from the rack when he saw it. An armored van, unloading a team of what seemed to be trained soldiers, fully armed and armored, into a back loading dock of Merrick Industries.

Nicky thought back to the phone, the one he took off an unconscious mercenary, with Keane’s name on it. Keane, the same name as Merrick’s head of security. Too many coincidences were piling up for Nicky to ignore.

He contemplated, for a moment, contacting the Guard. But then, with Joe gone temporarily, he’d have to talk to Andy or Sebastien or Nile, none of which he relished explaining to how and why he’d stumbled upon a small army piling into a pharmaceutical building in the Financial District in broad daylight without his suit. Besides, he wasn’t planning to break in and stage a takedown, not while the building was mostly full of scientists staying late to finish up labs, and accountants clocking overtime, and poor interns struggling to catch up on the week’s work.

No, he was going to do this quickly and quietly, something The Guard wasn’t very adept at. Plus, he’d probably get farther out of costume, this time. The first time his secret identity was actually proving useful.

Nicky subtly put his bike key back in his bag, looking through it as if he was checking for something he needed to bring home. After a fake scoff, a pause, he closed his bag and walked back towards the building quickly. If anyone were watching, though he was sure no one was, they would see nothing out of the ordinary in a man being annoyed at himself for forgetting something at work at the end of the day.

He knew the layout of the building well, having made sure to memorize it before he started working there. Quynh, if she knew, would have called him paranoid. He preferred prepared - preparation which paid off, evidently.

The men went in the back loading dock, which only led to the basement and the back freight elevators. The freight elevators that only stopped at the floors with cleanrooms and the penthouse. So either they were running covert ops drills in the basement for the local paramilitary, or Merrick was into dangerous enough shit that he was looking to post armed guards at the doors to his apartment.

Nicky walked past the front door staff with ease, noting the new addition of Smith and Wessons hidden in the folds of the doormen’s jackets. He made his way to the back hallway, passing the elevators that most of the employees took. He went for the stairs instead - less cameras, less people - and made his way up the forty flights to the top floor as quickly as he could. He was almost glad his apartment was a seven story walk-up, if only for the unintentional practice climbing obscene amounts of stairs.

It took longer than he thought - he had to stop around the thirtieth flight for a long break to catch his breath - but it was still less of a risk than the elevators, which security was surely monitoring. That didn’t mean he didn’t wish, on some level, that he’d taken the risk instead just to quell the burning in his lungs.

As soon as his breathing was back under control, he stepped out onto the top lab floor - Merrick’s personal lab, meant for his most cutting edge experiments, or so he said - thanking God that, in a room full of skinny overworked scientists, no one gave Nico a second glance.

He had planned to take the next staircase to the penthouse, claim he got lost or sleep-deprived or whatever lie the guards needed to get him a glance at what might be going down on the top floor, but what he saw in the lab made him pause.

There were dozens of scientists, most of which he hardly recognised, scurrying around a handful of imposing guards stationed at nearly every corner. It was after hours, there shouldn’t be this many workers still here, and he had never seen any guards on lab floors before. This was the lab with the most important research, sure, but to have undereducated armed guards standing watch, who were highly likely to unintentionally disturb the experiments? That was supremely suspicious.

He made his way to the nearest open computer, checking in on his visions to make sure nothing disastrous was lurking around the corner. They seemed comfortingly quiet, for once.

The computer was opened to an excel sheet of values, most of which didn’t make sense to Nicky, until he read the column headings.

CBC, BMP, NSR...these were medical abbreviations. Vital signs, for blood counts and metabolic levels and heart rhythms. They didn’t have any human trials running in the company, at least as far as Nicky knew.

Frowning, he looked at the values down the chart, checking all the other information stored on the patients. All very similar to each other, suited well for a man of average height and above average athleticism. He checked on the patient history and...well that was why they were all so similar. There was only one patient. Patient AK-1. Six foot three, extensive history of broken bones and torn ligaments, all due to something called “internal changes to specific gravity.”

Changing specific gravity. Nicky wasn’t an expert in physics, but he knew that that wasn’t something that happened naturally. There was only one explanation that he could think of. They were experimenting on supers.

He clicked back to the original page. There were stacks of papers on the desk, and he spent the time to flip through each one. Most were trial results on certain chemical compounds Nicky didn’t recognise or hand-written notes in some near-incomprehensible script. The last stack, much thicker than the others, held information Nicky was intensely familiar with, given his own work at Merrick’s. An entire genome sequencing, with certain seemingly innocuous clusters circled and annotated, on multiple different occasions most likely, given the different ink colors and handwriting.

So they were looking at the DNA of a super outside The Guard, taking his vitals and experimenting endlessly and secretly. That was definitely something that needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later, and in costume.

He backed away from the computer, not bothering to look where he was going. What was their end goal? To understand the phenomenon, where others had failed before? To inoculate new people with powers late in life, creating super soldiers? To enhance the powers this man had? Or, even worse, to take away powers in people who had them?

Nicky took the stairs down to his own lab, grabbing some papers at random to take home with him to excuse his absent-mindedness. He got to the elevator and down to his bike without incident, straddling it for a moment near the bike rack before he had to start paying attention and stop thinking this over and over in his mind.

An entire section of the building with armed guards dedicated to studying the condition of superpowers? The building he had worked in, none the wiser, for years.

How was he going to explain this all to The Guard?

Even worse, how was he going to explain it to  _ Joe _ ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: the first story with a plot I ever wrote was a murder mystery in the first grade, with so many red herrings it practically smelled like sea water. It figures that I would grow up to have such an intense love of foreshadowing in my work ;)


	6. We Could See Forever From Here, We Could See The Angels Swirling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from The Limousines - The Last Dance. (alternate titles were “I don’t know how but you aligned my stars” from Wildfires and “two square feet of heaven all our own” from Love Is A Dog From Hell. Also I knew it was too long but I also love the line “Freezing on the rooftop / Of our building bathed in / Rich purple after midnight sky / We wasted the first few hours / Of a brand new year / Wishing we could fly” from New Year’s Resolution. I was spoiled for choice on this one, but I actually do recommend listening to The Last Dance while reading, since all the lyrics fit weirdly well considering I wrote the scene before finding the title.) 
> 
> This chapter also has amazing art by dylogger so please feel free to freak out over that as much as I did when I first saw it!

Nicky waited until he was home to call Joe. He debated most of his way home whether to call Joe at all, since he had told Nicky he would be away until at least the next day, but he was afraid if he waited that it would be too late. It was Nicky’s company, and therefore his responsibility, but he also had the responsibility as a hero to tell his team of any imminent threats, even if they weren’t exactly  _ his _ team. 

So he changed, stopping to spread some arnica cream over the worst of his bruises from the night before and down a few painkillers before throwing on a thin t-shirt and jeans. Walking to the kitchen, he turned his burner over in his hand. 

It wasn’t necessarily a burner phone anymore he supposed, since he used it almost more often than his own phone now. He first got it a few years ago, after weeks of Joe pestering Angel for a way for The Guard to contact him when they needed him and vice versa. It still only had Joe’s number programmed in it, with a few sparse conversations with Penance and a string of increasingly specific memes and emojis from Copycat. Andy, as far as Nicky was aware, didn’t own a phone.

He set the phone down on his counter and went about setting up to make a quick pasta, not having the energy for anything more complex. The water was set to boil, tomatoes chopped and put in a saucepan to reduce with some garlic and basil and olive oil, and wine uncorked when Nicky finally picked the phone back up again.

He dialed as he poured himself a fairly large glass of moscato.

“Angel?” Joe answered on the first ring, “What’s wrong, are you in trouble?”

There was a staticky sound in the background that Nicky knew meant Joe was flying, but Nicky was more concerned with the utter panic in Joe’s voice at the idea of Nicky -  _ Angel _ \- in danger.

“I’m fine, Solar Flare,” Nicky said quickly, avoiding Joe’s name to try and get some professional distance in the conversation, “Sorry to call when you’re away but I have some important information for the Guard.”

Joe sighed on the other end of the phone. “I’m glad you’re okay, malaki. I just… don’t get me wrong, I love hearing your voice, but why call me? You could have told Penance or Copycat or the Scythian, they should all be on guard right now.”

That was a good point. Nicky scrambled for an answer that didn’t involve him missing Joe’s voice so much he didn’t even consider not calling him. He settled on the most honest answer he could give. “I don’t have their numbers saved. I didn’t even think the Scythian had a phone.”

“That...yeah she probably doesn’t. I usually just write a message in the sky if I need her, but that’s not really an option for you,” Joe said, “Should I be flattered that you only thought to save my number in your weird spy phone, Angel?”

Nicky grinned, heart in his throat. It was odd, after so many dates out of costume, to not respond to Joe’s flirting in kind, but Angel never did that and certainly wouldn’t start now. “The information, Solar Flare.”

“Joe.”

“Hm?” Nicky hummed, dropping his pasta in the boiling water.

“My name. It’s not like you don’t know it, so why don’t you use it?”

Nicky stopped stirring his pasta, grabbing his glass and taking a long sip of his wine instead. He couldn’t use secret identities as an excuse - Joe didn’t really have one at this point - or even a preference for the sensationalized name the news gave to him. Nicky had promised to be honest to Joe as much as possible, so there was no use trying to come up with a lie. The question, then, was which truth to reveal.

“It’s too personal. I feel wrong using it when you can’t respond in kind.” Nicky said. Even that felt like too big of an admission, too much of his heart on the line.

Joe chuckled. “I suppose that’s fair, Angel. It can only be good faith when you’re on the same playing field.”

That was exactly what he’d said to Joe a week ago on their date. It was odd, hearing his words parroted to him when Joe didn’t even know that was what he was doing. “Well put.”

“I can’t take the credit for that one,” Joe said, “The wording is courtesy of my wonderful partner Nico. He’s amazingly intelligent, too. Not sure if I’ve mentioned that yet.”

Somehow, it was easier to take Joe’s compliments this way. To hear them from Joe sounding so unbiased, singing his praises to someone who, for all he knew, was completely unaware of Nico except from Joe’s descriptions. It was easier to accept that Joe was being honest this way, that he truly felt that way and wasn’t saying it just to make Nicky feel better.

That still didn’t make it easier to respond. “The information, Solar Flare.”

A flash of Joe flying to his window and standing on his fire escape, flowers in hand, appeared unbidden in Nicky’s mind. He froze for half a second, wine glass halfway to his mouth.

“Right, yes.” The static behind Joe started to slow down. “Can we make this quick? I’m actually on my way to surprise my wonderful boyfriend, so…”

Nicky turned the heat off on his stove, slid his glass onto the counter, and jogged to his bedroom to make sure his costume was away and out of sight. If there was one thing he was inordinately glad for concerning his powers, it was that they had saved his identity more than a handful of times.

“I was out tonight investigating the arms dealers and found something concerning,” Nicky said as he cleaned up, “They seem to be payrolled by Merrick Industries. A company that is apparently also running experiments on an unknown super.”

Joe was silent for a long time. Long enough that Nicky got concerned, walking back to the kitchen to drain his pasta and add the sauce to distract himself before Joe spoke again. Joe never got silent like this. He must be really taking the information seriously. That, or maybe he put two and two together and connected Nicky and Angel.

It was probably the first option, but Nicky cautiously checked his windows anyways to make sure Joe wasn’t outside trying to hide his shock. He wasn’t.

“Merrick, you said.”

It wasn’t a question. Nicky’s New York accent was a little off, he knew, but Joe had never had a problem with it before. “Yes. A pharmaceutical company based in the Financial District.”

“No, no, I know what it is,” The air flow behind Joe stopped completely, but none of the other sounds of the city crept in. He must have stopped in midair, hovering. “That’s where my boyfriend works.”

Nicky wasn’t sure if there was concern or suspicion in his voice. He didn’t realize, until this moment, that Nicky himself might be thrown into suspicion with that connection.

“I didn’t mean to imply that your, your partner…” Nicky said, trying to backpedal so as to not somehow incriminate himself by inadvertently connecting his other self to the criminals he tried to stop. His life was far more complicated than was frankly fair, at this point.

“No, no,” Joe answered quickly, “It’s not that. I trust him, he wouldn’t do that, I just. I wonder if he might be in trouble. He’s the type to try to solve everything on his own, so if he stumbles on something he shouldn’t and tries to fix it himself...I’m just worried he might get hurt.”

Nicky stopped himself from chuckling. If only Joe knew his boyfriend had superpowers that were just as powerful as Joe’s own. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. It’s probably high up enough in the company that he has no idea what’s going on.”

“I’m sure,” Joe acquiesced, still sounding unconvinced, “He would never work for them if he knew, he’s a good man. I’ll keep an eye out and let The Guard know. Thanks for the heads up, malaki.”

“Not a problem, Solar Flare.”

“Well, as much as I love talking to you,” Joe said, as the sense that he was close crept up Nicky’s spine, “I really do have to get on with the whole ‘surprising my amazing boyfriend’ affair, so.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Nicky jogged back to his room once again, opening his nightstand drawer. “Have a good night, Flare.”

Joe snorted. “Good night, mio angelo.”

The line went dead. Nicky threw the phone in his nightstand and shoved on his glasses, sprinting to get back to his kitchen as images of Joe’s soft smile and gentle hands flashed in his field of vision with sharp clarity.

He only had just enough time to get back to the kitchen and plate his pasta before he heard a knock at his window. He knew it was Joe, but Nico, non-powered poor scientist Nico, would probably have thought it was a bird, or something.

Until the window opened.

Nicky spun around, clutching his plate to his chest and only barely having to fake surprise at Joe climbing into his apartment out of costume, a bouquet of small yellow, white, and blue flowers that Nicky couldn’t name clutched in his hand on the sill.

“You should really lock your windows, you know,” Joe said lightly as he clumsily crawled through the window like a terrible cat burglar, “Lots of dangerous people could see an unlocked window as an invitation.”

Nicky frowned. “Do all these dangerous people bring bouquets with them? Because if so I’m not sure I would like to deter them.”

Joe practically fell into the apartment, maneuvering like he was with one hand occupied. Once he was inside, he took a quick look around the sparse apartment. “The decor could certainly stand to benefit from a few more blossoms.”

The place was fairly bare, yes, but given how little time Nicky spent there any more money spent on interior decorating would have been a waste. “Yes, well.”

He put down his plate of pasta, stepping forward to embrace Joe, burying his nose in Joe’s neck. They’d only been dating a little over a month and Joe had only been gone less than a week, but Nicky still felt the loss keenly. He’d grown accustomed to having him around in costume, and knowing him out of costume as well only made his presence nearly ubiquitous in Nicky’s life.

“I missed you too, habibi.” Joe hummed into Nicky’s hair.

Nicky pulled back, pressing a quick kiss to Joe’s lips before stealing the bouquet from Joe’s hand to take into the kitchen while he put his pasta off to the side.

“I have a surprise for you,” Joe said as Nicky put the flowers in the tallest glass he could find. With someone so romantic for a boyfriend, he should probably anticipate more flowers in the future, maybe invest in an actual vase.

He turned around, pseudo-vase in hand, to frown at Joe. His visions threatened at the back of his eyes, ready to ruin any surprise that might be coming, but he was able to tune them out around Joe, if he wanted. “I thought you showing up early with a bouquet of flowers was the surprise?”

Joe chuckled. “I came home early because I missed you, and the flowers are because I passed a kiosk that had bouquets that complimented your eyes,” he said so simply, as if anyone would have done the same. Nicky’s heart melted a little even as he fought down the panic at the thought of Joe memorizing even such small things about his appearance, things that could be traced to Angel if one took the time. “No, no, I have something much better.”

Joe stepped backwards, palms up at his sides, towards the window he’d just entered. The window that led to the fire escape. Nicky immediately forgot everything leading up to that moment, all the stress and anxiety over Merrick and his identity and the arms dealers and experiments suddenly seemed not to matter at all.

“Joe, I don’t-”

“Do you trust me, Nico?”

Nicky sighed, putting the flowers down blindly on his counter. He was already falling so hard for this man, and Joe was really asking him to test the limits here. If Joe was asking what Nicky thought he was asking, then that was dangerously close to their shared extracurriculars - a little too close, if Nicky was being logical about it all. Something about Joe made Nicky very bad at thinking logically. Or, really, thinking at all.

Which is why, when Joe looked - really  _ looked _ \- at him with those big brown eyes, well.

“Yes.” He took off his glasses, placing them on the table next to the flowers, walking towards Joe like he was magnetized. “Of course I trust you, Joe.”

It was worth it, Nicky thought, when Joe’s face lit up so bright Nicky was half-afraid of the smoke alarm going off. “Then come here.”

Nicky practically jumped back into Joe’s arms, craving the heat and the closeness that he felt only so rarely, up until now. Joe laughed into Nicky’s neck, pressing a soft kiss to Nicky’s skin just next to the collar of his t-shirt.

“We kind of need to get out the window first, habibi.”

“That would be smart,” Nicky said, without moving from the strong embrace Joe had wrapped him in.

Joe squeezed him hard, once, then let him go. “Come on, I don’t want to accidentally melt your window pane.”

To think that Joe could get that hot just from holding Nicky like this, even after a month of dating… “That’s not exactly a deterrent.”

“You’ll lose your deposit,” Joe warned.

“I’ll lose it anyway, the original paint was yellow.”

Nicky could feel Joe’s laugh in his chest, rumbling low and thick. “The green is a nice change, I think.”

They both pulled back, Nicky glancing down at Joe’s lips while Joe, he was sure, was trying to catch his eyes.

“If you don’t want to Nico, that’s fine. We can stay in and watch a movie, or cook up some more of that dinner I saw you hiding, or just sit together if you want.”

Nicky shook his head. With such an opportunity dangled in front of him, there was no way he was letting it slip away. “Take me flying, Joe.”

A smile plays on Joe’s lips. “It gets a little chilly up there, you might want a jacket.”

“I trust you’ll be able to keep me warm.” Nicky said without thinking, a little breathless.

Joe rubbed a hand down Nicky’s back, leaving a trail of heat over Nicky’s spine. “Then let’s go.”

They both ducked out of the window like teenagers sneaking out of the house, shushing each other through giggles. The whole situation was making Nicky feel uncharacteristically giddy, and he was sure Joe felt the same. Nicky had only a moment to right himself before Joe gathered him close, wrapping his warm, strong arms around Nicky’s back tight enough over the bruises that were still blooming on Nicky’s back that he almost winced. Would have, probably, if he wasn’t more used to pain, to getting the shit beat out of him and recovering without anyone the wiser.

“Okay?” Joe whispered in his ear.

He was close, so close, and in the same position as the last time Joe had given him a ride, in costume. The anxious part of him wanted to say no, to drop this whole thing in case it went too far. They were going to be hundreds of feet in the air while Nicky willfully harbored a huge secret from the person solely responsible to keep him from dying. That was willfully reckless, even for him.

On the other hand, Joe was so close, and so warm, and nuzzling into Nicky’s neck like he wanted to stay there forever.

Nicky beat back the anxious part of him with a stick.

“Perfect,” Nicky said, and even mostly meant it.

“All right, take off in three, two, one,”

  
  


Joe’s grip got tighter and warmer, surging as Nicky’s feet lifted off the ground. He was lucky they were on the top floor, able to take off immediately, otherwise the maneuvering would have been much much tricker.

It was terrifying at first - Nicky had the feeling it always would be - to feel his feet leave the ground in a burst of heat, to watch the window to his apartment get smaller in his view, to feel the wind whip past his face as he was suspended in midair by only Joe’s arms around him. But then he registered that this was  _ Joe _ , who was looking at him like he was more amazing than flying, who was giggling into Nicky’s neck as Nicky’s hands clenched tight into Joe’s shirt, who was twirling them around so that he could get a better grip, pulling on Nicky’s thighs until Nicky was wrapping his legs around Joe’s hips.

“Surely there must be a better way to do this.” Nicky gasped as Joe’s grip left, just for a moment, to move to support him under his ass.

“There is, but then I wouldn’t be able to do this.” Joe leaned in and brushed a chaste kiss over Nicky’s lips. “And I really like doing that.”

Everything crashed together in Nicky’s mind - he was  _ flying _ and Joe was kissing him as  _ Nico _ and, cazzo, he was  _ a thousand feet in the air _ \- and so he could be excused if his brain went a little haywire. “Do you say that to all the pretty boys you take flying with you?”

Joe laughed into Nicky’s cheek, planting a kiss there before catching Nicky’s eyes. “The only pretty boy I take flying is you, Nicolò.”

Nicky knew, somewhere in his mind, that Joe had flown with civilians and other heroes before, but he understood what Joe meant. He never shared this with people he was dating, Nicky was the first. Knowing that made Nicky fall in love with him a little more.

Love. Shit. He really did love Joe, didn’t he? Not just the far away puppy love of the superhero he admired and flirted with in equal measure, either. He’d seen Joe cry at kid’s movies and sweat straight through his shirt while cooking because he already ran so hot. He knew Joe had truly terrible taste in socks, and that he always left his art supplies in the oddest places. Joe was no longer Solar Flare, the hero he bantered and fought crime with and went home. Now he was Yusuf, the tender-hearted artist who always burned the muffins he tried to make when Nicky had a bad day at work and who Nicky really, truly, loved.

He had to tell him.

He’d spent all this time thinking the barrier between them was not wanting Joe to know, but now Nicky realized he did. He wanted Joe to know more than anything, wanted to be able to share stuff like this with him, wanted to joke about their powers, wanted Joe to kiss him late at night with a hand in his hair, calling Nicky his angel. He wanted all of it so bad it almost hurt, and he knew that if Joe trusted him with this, with flying thousands of feet above the ground - since Nicky knew that if he squirmed or moved too much it could throw Joe off and put them both in danger, as Joe often complained civilians did when they got a little too starstruck - then there was no reason for Nicky not to tell Joe everything.

But that was for later. Tomorrow, maybe. Right now, decision being made, he was free to let himself bury his cold nose into Joe’s neck, making him squeak a little, and bask in the wonder that was his life with this wonderful, beautiful man.

“Nico,” Joe said after a moment, pulling Nicky out of his reverie.

Nicky hummed, closing his arms tighter around Joe’s neck as he nuzzled in further.

“Nico, are you afraid of heights?”

Nicky frowned, pulling his face back to catch Joe’s inquisitive look. “It seems a little late to ask that now.”

“No, I mean,” Joe’s lips parted just slightly, like they always did when he was trying to find the correct words to say. After a moment, he shook his head. “Just, look.”

There was a terrifying moment when they flipped in midair. Nicky’s stomach dropped and he clenched his arms and legs around Joe tighter.

Joe hummed in his ear. “Relax Nico, I got you. Just, look.”

Nicky opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d shut. The view was….wow. “Joe,” he whispered, watching the lights of New York start to turn on one by one below them, turning the city into something one might see in a painting or on a postcard. “I love it. I love you.”

Joe tensed up, and Nicky could feel them stall out for a second before Joe got control back. Only then did Nicky realize that he’d said aloud what he had just realized a few minutes ago.

“I, sorry,” Nicky stuttered, “I won’t take it back, because it’s true, but I’m sorry I said it now when you clearly aren’t prepared to hear it.”

Joe moved his head to catch Nicky’s eye. Nicky fought off the instinct to turn away from the heat in Joe’s gaze. “Nicolò,” He said, breathless, “I’ve loved you so much and for so long that any words I could find seemed too small. You mean the world to me and more, and to hear you say that you feel the same makes me the happiest man alive.”

Well. Nicky couldn’t just  _ not _ kiss him after a speech like that. “You’re such an incurable romantic.”

Joe smirked. “Guilty.”

They fell into each other, kissing tenderly until the sun set fully under the horizon and the winds picked up in its absence. Nicky shivered into Joe’s arms, fully aware now that he was still only wearing a t-shirt.

“Are you cold? Should we go back?” Joe asked so earnestly, lips drawn together in something Nicky would almost call a pout.

Nicky hummed, burying his cold nose into Joe’s neck once again. “I trust you to keep me warm.”

Joe laughed, and Nicky could feel Joe’s skin warm up slowly until it felt like he was clinging to a furnace.

“We should head back, though,” Joe said, and the world around Nicky shifted as he felt them moving faster, “This takes a lot of energy, and a very beautiful man distracted me from making us dinner.”

“I did nothing,” Nicky protested, “You came in and said you had a gift right away. I didn’t have the time to do anything distracting.”

“It was the way the sunset reflected off your smile, hayati,” Joe tightened his arms around Nicky, “I may be immune to fire, but my heart can still be set aflame by your beauty.”

Nicky smirked. “How long did it take you to think of that one?”

Joe didn’t answer straight away as he steered them to drop lightly back onto Nicky’s fire escape. “It came to me a few days ago, when I was making muffins.”

“You mean burning muffins,” Nicky corrected.

Joe shrugged, a smile playing in the corners of his mouth. “Semantics.”

They were firmly back on solid ground now, and Nicky unhooked his legs from Joe’s waist to stand properly, but neither moved away from each other. 

“We really should make some food.”

Nicky hummed, still burrowing into Joe’s warmth even though his nice warm apartment and plethora of sweaters was well within reach. “I made enough for two. I usually bring leftovers to work for lunch, but for you I can brave the cafeteria.”

“And you call me the incurable romantic,” Joe said, so sappily sweet that Nicky had to laugh.

They did eventually make it inside to reheat Nicky’s pasta and eat it quickly, still riding the high of the flight through the air they spent plastered to each other’s front. They migrated to the couch as soon as dinner was finished, leaving the dishes for later. They fell into each other immediately, dropping heavily into the soft cushions with Nicky sat in Joe’s lap.

Joe’s hands were roaming over Nicky’s sides, settling on his hips with a strong grip. He licked into Nicky’s mouth and pulled their hips closer together at the same time, making Nicky’s brain haywire for a moment. He tangled his fingers in Joe’s hair, unintentionally pulling at the strands when Joe bit down on his lip lightly. Nicky pulled back to apologize, but was cut off by Joe’s deep moan. No need for an apology after all, it seemed.

Joe locked eyes with Nicky, pupils blown and cheeks flushed, and licked his reddened lips. “This is a really nice couch, Nico. Soft. Very well-suited to makeout sessions.”

Nicky raised an eyebrow at him, though he was sure the gesture lost some of its power if Nicky looked anywhere near as debauched as Joe did. “Are you trying to imply something?”

Joe smiled, moving in to nip lightly at Nicky’s neck. Nicky bit back a groan. “I’m implying that this couch might be well-suited to other, more rigorous activities.”

They’d gone slow, so far, out of some unspoken agreement that Joe would let Nicky set the pace. Luckily or not, their dates got cut off early by crime often enough that it didn’t seem particularly unusual that they hadn’t slept together yet. The one night he’d been over at Joe’s house late enough he was so exhausted from work and, unbeknownst to Joe, getting the shit beat out of him by a group of escaped felons the previous night that Joe hadn’t done more than feed him a almost-not-burnt muffin, kiss him on the forehead, and insist he sleep immediately. Nicky hadn’t slept as well as he had that night, wrapped up in Joe’s arms, since he was a child, but he couldn’t see a way of asking for that to happen again without the inevitable confrontation of the other bed activities he was avoiding.

It wasn’t that Nicky had a problem with sex, necessarily. He didn’t particularly enjoy one night stands, but he engaged in them occasionally before he and Joe started dating, and walked away satisfied enough. His hard rule, however, was that he never  _ never _ slept with someone who knew both sides of him without knowing they were connected. Not that the issue had come up often - or ever, so far - but it was one of the few rules he had concerning his identity that he would never falter. 

Having a secret identity was a slippery moral problem already, without adding sex into the mix. But potentially sleeping with someone who knew both Nicky and Angel, who thought they were separate people and was only dating one of them, was too uncomfortably close to rape by fraud for Nicky to even consider. While it wasn’t quite the same - Joe was clearly asking and consenting - he wasn’t walking into it fully aware of the situation. What if he would never want to sleep with Angel? Nicky was fairly sure that wasn’t the case, but he couldn’t be positive. Not without telling Joe the truth.

And he could, tell Joe the truth that is, but he loved Joe, and Joe loved him. He couldn’t let Joe get hurt, and if he told Joe now then he’d want to help stop Merrick. Joe, whose powers definitively did not make him bulletproof. Joe, who would want to protect Nicky by taking down Merrick before Nicky could, putting himself in even more danger than usual. Nicky knew Merrick, knew the company and the hierarchy and how to get in and out without getting noticed, a crucial factor in not getting shot. Joe, for all his merits, was about as stealthy as a marching band.

“Are you okay? I’m sorry if I’m moving too fast. It was just a suggestion, a joke really.”

Nicky hadn’t realized how long he’d been sitting there, frozen in thought. Joe’s face looked almost scared.

“Mi dispiace,” Nicky shook his head, sorting his thoughts, “I didn’t mean to- it’s not that. It’s not you. It’s me.”

Joe’s face screwed up in confusion. He pulled his hands back, sitting as far as he could from Nicky as possible while Nicky was still in his lap to inject some space between them.

Nicky caught Joe’s wrists and moved his hands back towards his hips. “It’s not the intimacy that is giving me pause, Yusuf. I want to do this with you, be close to you, sleep next to you and wake up with you in my bed. And yes, I want to give you pleasure in as many ways as you will allow me but…” Nicky paused, eyes falling to Joe’s chest, searching for how to explain without giving it all away.

“You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to, Nicolò.” Joe rubbed his thumbs into Nicky’s hips, slightly more at ease. “Just tell me what’s okay right now and we can talk and renegotiate whenever things change, on either of our ends.”

How in the world did Nicky land himself the most thoughtful, understanding, perfect boyfriend when he couldn’t even tell him what he truly did for a living? God liked to tease him, it seemed, by giving him paradise just out of reach.

He resolved to be as truthful as possible, looking Joe square in the eyes. “I have something to tell you. It’s not bad, I don’t think, and I can’t tell you right now, but I also cannot sleep with you in good conscience until you know.”

Understanding dawned over Joe’s face, like the first light of dawn through the fog. “Oh, Nicolò. I absolutely understand.”

Nicky frowned. That wasn’t exactly how he expected it to go. He expected Joe to needle for hints, for boundaries of the secret, for a timeline. He didn’t think Joe would acquiesce so easily. “Really? You’re okay with that?”

Joe chuckled, leaning in to plant a soft kiss to Nicky’s collarbone. “I’m a superhero, Nico, who mostly hangs out with other heroes. If there’s one thing I understand, it’s the complications that come with keeping things from the ones you love. I’m not overjoyed at the prospect of you keeping something that big from me, but I get it. If my identity wasn’t already public, I’d probably be having the same moral crisis.” Nicky hoped his face didn’t give away how close that was to the truth. “Just so long as you plan to tell me eventually, I can wait as long as you need.”

Nicky’s heart felt a thousand pounds lighter. “Absolutely. I just have one thing I have to take care of, then I promise to tell you everything. Tomorrow, even.”

A small crease appeared between Joe’s eyebrows for just a second, before disappearing just as quickly.

“Okay,” Joe nodded, “then if it’s okay with you I’d like to keep kissing you, then maybe watch a movie and hold you as you fall asleep. Does that sound good to you?”

Everything Nicky was worried about the last few days - his identity, Merrick, the thugs from earlier, Quynh’s meddling - all of it melted away with those few words from Joe. God, Nicky thought, I love this man beyond measure and reason.

“That all sounds perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In writing this fic, I found myself making about a million notes in the margins of what Joe is thinking or not saying, so I'm already about 50% through writing a series of outtakes of Joe's POV through this main fic, very much including this scene here.  
> Also! if you love the art as much as I do, go give Dee some love at @dylogger on tumblr!


	7. Just When You Think You’ve Got It All Worked Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the line (from The Limousines - The Future) finishes “that’s probably when they’ll put you in the ground”, so...there’s that.  
> Also I probably should have split this into two chapters, but I didn’t want to leave a cliffhanger anywhere, so we get one giant monster chapter that ended up taking up close to 30 pages of my google doc. This chapter alone actually hits the 12.5k word goal for the bang (well, minus a measly 200 words), to put it into perspective.  
> Also, there's more art! It's very exciting!!

The morning dawned, cool sunlight shining through the windows as Nicky laid awake in bed, Joe’s arms wrapped tightly around him, and planned to take down his own company from the inside.

It had to be done today. He promised Joe last night that he would spill all his secrets as soon as possible, and now that he has the proof he needs he has no reason to delay. It would have been better to get it done before, when Joe was away at his parents’, but he can’t put it off any longer.

Merrick had to go down today.

He quietly extricated himself from bed, letting Joe snore on. He was an adorably heavy sleeper, a thought that was a little less adorable when Nicky thought about the fact that he stopped criminals for a living, criminals who knew his name and probably where he lived.

Nicky shook his head, heading to the kitchen. He was going to make himself some eggs, eat them as he schemed, then head straight in to work early. That way, since Merrick lived in the penthouse of the building, there was a high chance of no one but him and his private army being in the building at all. They would be expecting gangs, or police, or The Guard. They weren’t expecting a lone hero who had a swipe card to the building.

He had just cracked the eggs into a bowl, whipping them idly with a fork as he moved to grab some random vegetables nearing their expiration date, when Joe walked into the kitchen.

Joe yawned widely, bringing both his arms up and exposing a line of skin on his stomach between Nicky’s borrowed t-shirt and sweatpants. Nicky’s brain had to reboot itself at the sight of Joe, in his clothes, with what looked like an impressive case of morning wood tenting the front.

Joe let his arms drop, planting his hands on his hips in a way that Nicky was sure was unintentionally making an arrow straight to his groin. “What’s the matter, Nico? Do I have bedhead?”

Maybe not so unintentional, then.

Nicky dragged his eyes up to Joe’s hair, which was indeed sporting a pretty spectacular case of bedhead. He couldn’t help but think that this is what Joe might look like tonight, after Nicky tells him everything and then fucks him into the mattress.

He swallowed. “Perfectly tousled.”

“Liar,” Joe laughed, stepping into Nicky's space to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “But I’ll forgive you if you make me a share of whatever it is you’re cooking.”

“It’s just eggs, some vegetables,” Nicky’s brain was still rebooting, apparently. His cheek held onto the lingering warmth from Joe’s overheated lips.

“It still smells delicious.” Joe shrugged, making a beeline for the coffee maker. He poured himself a mug all the way to the brim, downing an impressive amount in one go.

Nicky scoffed, finally grabbing blindly for some kale and cherry tomatoes before shutting the refrigerator door with his hip. “Just because you’re able to drink boiling hot coffee doesn’t mean you should. It’s expensive, made to be savored.”

“I can think of a few other things that fit that description I’d like to savor instead.” Joe winked.

Nicky blushed and turned towards the stove. This man will be the death of him, surely.

“I am expensive, now?”

Joe put down his empty mug and wrapped his arms around Nicky from behind. “Oh yes, very much. I only go flying with the most high-class escorts, of course.”

Nicky surprised himself with the force of his laugh, turning off the stove again to ensure he didn’t get burned. “An escort, Yusuf?”

“Mm, you’re right,” Joe hummed into the side of Nicky’s neck, beard scratching at the sensitive skin there, “You’re more like a painting. A statue.”

He turned Nicky around, pulling back to meet his gaze. There was such warmth there Nicky was sure his heart would melt.

“A masterpiece.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. “I love you.”

He pulled Joe into a kiss with a hand on his neck. Joe immediately softened, framing Nicky’s face with his large warm hands.

Joe pulled back first, planting quick kisses on Nicky’s nose and cheeks. “You know,” He said in between kisses, “Breakfast might go quicker if you let me help you.”

Nicky pushed him back by the shoulders, shaking his head. “No, no, no way. Last time you were in the kitchen with me you turned the popcorn into ash.” He grabbed a towel from the countertop and whipped it in Joe’s direction, ushering him away from the food.

Joe went willingly, laughing in a way that only served to make his smile brighter. “To be fair, I’m paid quite good money to turn things into ash. That’s technically my job description.”

Nicky snorted. He turned back to the countertop, setting up his cutting board to chop up his tomatoes and chiffonade his kale. “Any preference on what goes in your omelette?”

Joe shook his head, leaning his elbows on the counter. “As long as there’s no meat that’s fine.”

“Right, you keep halal,” Nicky said, checking his internal list to make sure everything was okay. He didn’t have any meat or alcohol out, so he was probably good.

“Mostly,” Joe amended, “aside from the occasional beer or two.”

“Well regardless, I’ll definitely have to learn more halal recipes, for the future,” Nicky said off-handedly as he chopped away.

Joe froze in the corner of Nicky’s vision. Nicky stopped his cutting, looking up to meet Joe’s eyes. He looked so open and soft, like Nicky had just presented him with the most thoughtful gift he’d ever gotten. “Planning to have me over for more breakfasts, Nico? I’m honored.”

He couldn’t blame Joe for getting nearly misty-eyed at the concept of more, more breakfasts at his apartment which followed more nights spent in each others’ arms. The thought that this was something he could have, that this might be forever, sent Nicky’s heart soaring.

Joe had apparently snuck up behind him, because the next second Joe’s arms were around his waist again, beard scratching at the sensitive skin of Nicky’s neck. It was like his spine melted, the only thing holding him up was the strength of Joe’s arms around him. He leaned his head back to rest on Joe’s shoulder, letting himself just exist in the moment.

“I love you, Yusuf.”

Nicky could feel the smile Joe tried to hide in the junction of his shoulder. Joe’s answering “I love you too, hayati,” was muffled in Nicky’s skin, but that was okay. He knew the feeling, of wanting to shy away from the force of your feelings. 

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more,” Nicky recited, remembering a vague image of a tortured confession.

He felt more than heard Joe laugh behind him. “Oh, we’re quoting Jane Austen, now?” He planted a warm chaste kiss on Nicky’s exposed skin. “She had some good ideas, that woman.”

Nicky chuckled. “That she did.” He let himself indulge for just a moment longer, just one more breath, before pushing Joe back away. “Now if you don’t let me finish making us breakfast then we’ll never get to work.”

Joe acquiesced, walking around to sit at the kitchen table in view of the countertop where Nicky went back to work. 

“So,” Joe started after a few more minutes in which Nicky finished cutting the vegetables and started on the eggs in the pan, “Today is the day, huh?”

Nicky frowned down at his eggs. They weren’t quite fluffing up like they usually did. “Hm?”

“The day you divulge your big secret, and all the uh, activities that come after?”

Nicky stopped. The images that came unbidden to his mind - of Joe, eyes half-lidded staring at Nicky like he wanted to eat him, half naked in Nicky’s room, lying against his sheets - had nothing to do with his powers. “Ah yes, the activities.”

Joe chuckled. “After the secret, yes.”

Nicky nodded, folding his vegetables into the eggs. Flat as they were, they would simply have to do. “I promise. Tonight, after work, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Okay, Nico, I believe you.” Joe stood, clapping his hands together. “I suppose that means I’ll just go shower by myself, then. You have towels in the bathroom, right?”

Nicky very pointedly pushed down his visions, which he was sure would show Joe in the shower, wet and naked and very much existing in such a way  _ in Nicky’s apartment _ . “Sì, in bagno ... da qualche parte.”

“I don’t speak Italian, but I’ll take that as a yes.” Joe caught Nicky’s eye, winked, then sauntered off towards Nicky’s bedroom.

If Joe kept this up, Nicky wasn’t sure he could hold out until tonight.

  
  


They ended up only an hour later than Nicky had planned, delayed as they were with soft words and softer kisses, which was already far too late to catch the building empty. Luckily, it was a nice day outside and most of their projects were slowing down in anticipation of an upcoming safety review, so Nicky knew from experience the building would be mostly empty at lunch.

He resolved to pull the fire alarm before he got to the penthouse, just in case.

Or he was going to, if he hadn’t been spotted in costume as he walked out of the bathroom on the lowest level of the secure labs.

He knocked out the guard who found him, dragging him into the bathroom to sleep it off. The man had, unfortunately, had time to set off an alarm apparently, since the moment Nicky stepped out of the bathroom once again a silent alarm went off, tripping the emergency lights which strobed brightly above Nicky’s head.

This was going to take much longer than he thought, if the guards were already alerted. He started jogging towards the stairway at a brisk pace.

He was halfway down the hall when his phone rang at the same time a vision reared up behind his eyes, which he ignored. The hall was clear, he’d checked, and the only people who called him were Joe and Quynh, one of whom was out on her lunch break with her scarily competent girlfriend. Plus, Quynh didn’t have his burner phone number.

Unless, of course, it wasn’t his burner phone in his pocket, but his regular civilian phone. The caller ID had a picture of Joe with a backwards cap on, winking at the camera. Fuck.

He picked it up anyway, mostly on autopilot. “Pronto.”

Joe chuckled on the other end. “That’s adorable, you know that?”

Nicky stopped running. “What?”

“Your  _ Italian-ness _ , it’s cute.”

He was in the middle of a large-scale corporate takedown involving quite a lot of violence and armed guards, and his boyfriend called to tell him he was cute? His heart fluttered unnecessarily in his chest.

“Come va, Yusuf?”

“Nothing, I just thought I’m free right now, and if you’re also free we could go on a walk or grab a bite to eat on your lunch break, maybe save you from that terrible cafeteria food.”

That was...not good. Joe couldn’t show up now, not when he was so close to finishing it all and finally telling him the truth. “Spiacente, I’m really swamped right now.”

“Huh,” Joe said, right as the door to the stairway burst open and spilled out more armed guards, “Quynh said you guys were pretty much finished up when I was texting her earlier. Sorry you’re so busy, maybe later?”

Nicky hummed as he fended off the guards with one hand occupied. He shoved the phone between his shoulder and ear as he threw a ring at the closest guard, making his shot go wide. Luckily, the hallway was narrow enough that only the one or two at front could get shots off without fear of friendly fire. “Sì, sì, later is fine.”

There was a long pause on the phone that Nicky spent knocking two guards together by their heads, dropping them onto the floor as he pushed the rest back with one large ring around all of them. 

He let his visions flood back in. Twenty seconds until one got another shot off towards his shoulder. Thirty-five until reinforcements tried to push at the stairway door, still clogged with struggling armed gunmen. He almost regretted picking up the phone. Almost.

“Nico.” Joe sounded shocked and a little worried. Nicky was firmly regretting the call, now. “Nico, are those gunshots?”

_ Cazzo _ . “What? No, that’s a….come si dice, a centrifuge.”

The gunmen were starting to look confused. Angel, as they knew him, had a thick New York accent and was scarily focused. Angel didn’t talk on the phone in Italian as he infiltrated a busy pharmaceutical building. This was starting to get very messy very quickly.

“Nico, if this is about that big secret you mentioned last night then just tell me, okay?” Three seconds until the shot. Nicky ducked into an open doorway, keeping the ring around the pack of guards intact as much as he could when he was out of sight and the men were still struggling valiantly. “As long as you’re not cheating or something then it’s fine. I promise.”

“Cheating? Joe, no.” Nicky leaned back against the door heavily. “Okay, yes, it is about the secret, fine, but we’re fine. Don’t worry about my fidelity, Yusuf, I would never cheat on you.”

The guards had reached the stairway door, pressing on all sides of the ring Nicky was only barely keeping together.

“This will all be wrapped up after today, Joe, and I’ll be free to tell you everything. I promise. I love you.”

Joe takes a beat, clearly measuring his words. “Okay. Okay, I love you too. I’ll see you later, then.”

Nicky sighs, letting the door take more of his weight. Crisis averted, for now.

“Stay safe, angel.” Joe added just before hanging up, almost as an afterthought.

Nicky hung up the phone, stuffing it into the hidden pocket of his suit before bursting out the door at the same time as he let go of the straining ring, letting all the guards fall into each other like bowling pins.

He was most of the way through the guards, picking them off from the pile one by one with a combination of rings and grappling with his hands when the words sank in.

Angel, Joe had said.

He’d called Nicky his angel.

He knew.

One of the gunmen landed a hefty blow on Nicky’s jaw, spurning him back into action.

“Cazzo, cazzo, cazzo,” he muttered under his breath as he tore through the rest of the guards, knocking out as many as he could. He didn’t trust himself to keep his concentration on his rings right now. Joe  _ knew _ . Joe knew and didn’t say anything, not outright, and Nicky was having a minor freakout over it.

He cleared the hallway right as the image of Joe flying in the window of the floor above him pressed into his vision.

Make that a major freakout, actually.

He sprinted up the stairs, bursting out the door at the same moment Joe broke in the window.

The floor is mostly empty, most of the guards having met Nicky on the floor below, so Nicky doesn’t hesitate to knock out the handful of guards with a quick ring to the forehead. As soon as they all dropped, he stalked up to Joe with a single-minded determination.

“I got a ping that something was going down here,” Joe lies, running a hand through his beard in that nervous habit of his, “You ran into this mess without me, malaki?”

Nicky levels him with a flat look, doing his best to keep his emotions in check. “You know.”

It was supposed to be a question, but it doesn’t come out that way.

Joe looks around at the empty floor - some sort of open lab concept, they were getting closer to the top - and the pile of guards on the ground. “Is this really the time, Angel?” He looks cagey, as if he’d done something wrong. “We can talk later.”

“Stronzate, Joe,” Nicky ground out, letting his true accent bleed into his words. “Tell me now, when did you find out?”

Joe looked down sheepishly. “You really do have pretty eyes, Angel. I almost figured it out from that, that first night, but it wasn’t until you laughed that I was sure. I spent a lot of hours trying to get that laugh out of you in costume, I wasn’t going to easily forget it.”

Nicky froze. The first night. Over a month of dating, and Joe knew the entire fucking time. He knew, and he let Nicky go on lying like an idiot.

Sure, he should probably feel a little guilty for not telling Joe sooner, but it was completely understandable in his mind for him to not tell a man he’d just met, a man he’d only just last night realized he’d loved him. Joe had known for  _ weeks _ and said nothing.

Nicky screwed his eyes shut.

“Nico,” Joe said, soft and hesitant. Nicky ignored it.

A vision came through. A dozen guards coming through the back cleanroom door. Twenty seconds.

Nicky spared half a thought for the poor scientists whose research was being ruined. The rest of his mind was occupied by all the implications of Joe knowing exactly who he was the whole time. Not many of them were good.

Twelve seconds.

“You’re right, we can talk about this later.” Nicky opened his eyes, looking to the cleanroom doors. “Eight seconds.”

Joe sighed, reluctantly calling fire to his hands. “Later. Right.”

There was a moment, just a moment, when Nicky felt almost as if this was where he was meant to be, despite it all. He didn’t tell Joe, and Joe didn’t tell him - the tension was palpable - but even so, nothing felt as  _ right _ as standing side by side with Joe, facing down the world.

No matter what, he would do anything it took to keep this.

The guards burst in and Joe and Nicky took them out quickly, together. They didn’t need to speak a word, working in tandem perfectly as they always did.

Joe shot off fireballs with efficient ease, hitting all the targets Nicky immobilized for him. Joe disintegrated a gun aimed at Nicky, Nicky threw to the ground anyone who set their sights on Joe. It was an instinctive thing, their harmony.

Then it was over.

As soon as they were down, Joe stood straight and looked to Nicky. He always looked to Nicky.

“Where to, mon ange?”

Nicky raised an eyebrow at him. There was so much hanging in the air, he wasn’t sure how to respond.

Joe shrugged. “This is your heist. I’m just along for the ride.”

“It’s not a heist,” Nicky answered absently. “We keep going up. He’s in the penthouse.”

They moved towards the doorway as one. “Who is ‘he?’”

“Steven Merrick, CEO.” They entered the stairway, one after the other as easily as if it were planned. “He’s supplying the community with guns - large, experimental ones. I found the name of his head of security on a dealer’s phone. That, and we need to know why he’s experimenting on a super, what he intends to find.”

Joe stopped on the landing to the next floor. The floor Nicky worked on.

“You’re sure Merrick is behind this? It’s a big company.”

Nicky sighed, hand on the doorknob. “Keane, the head of security, was a questionable hire. He was quickly folded in after the old head of security disappeared on a company business trip. He never leaves Merrick’s side.” Nicky opened the door, walking onto the floor where he’d spent almost all his time as a civilian. “He knows.”

If Joe had any more questions, he didn’t ask them. Instead he followed Nicky onto the floor, checking each doorway in a tenuous silence. It was all clear, as far as he could see.

Then the elevator pinged open around the corner, someone stepping off near-silently.

Nicky internally cursed his lack of visions as he held a hand out to stop Joe in his tracks. Stealth wasn’t necessarily Solar Flare’s strong point.

“Hello?”

“ _ Cazzo _ ,” Nicky muttered under his breath for what seemed like the hundredth time today. He knew that voice.

Joe frowned. He stepped around Nicky’s hand, towards the voice. “Quynh?”

Nicky sighed and followed, all hope of stealth out the window. “You shouldn’t be here, it’s not safe,” He intoned in his regular Angel voice.

Quynh stood in the elevator bay, sleeves rolled up and hair pinned back tightly to her head. She sighed heavily. “Really, Nico? I know it’s a shit company, but couldn’t you wait until our bonuses went out? I was really looking forward to spending that money on a new couch. Mine sucks.”

Nicky freezes, again. Today was just designed to fuck with his sense of equilibrium, wasn’t it?

“Does everyone know?” He nearly shouts, throwing his hands up in frustration.

He looked to Joe, who immediately threw his hands up to show his innocence. “I didn’t tell her, I swear.”

Quynh rolled her eyes, placing a hand on her cocked hip. “You’re a shit liar, Nico. I knew the third time you bailed on me at the same time a robbery was happening.”

Nicky rubbed at the bridge of his nose, muttering to himself under his breath. “Giuro su Dio, tu persone sarete la mia morte.”

Joe rubbed at his beard. “You really should leave, Quynh. This might get ugly, and I know you’d rather not get into all that.”

Quynh shook her head, licking at her teeth. “It’s time I get back into the game, Joe. I’m ready.”

“Game?” Nicky rubbed at his temples harshly. He really  _ really _ didn’t need another life-altering secret to be revealed right now. “Please tell me you mean chess, or literally anything other than what I assume you mean.”

Joe opened his mouth to answer, looking almost pained, but Quynh beat him to it.

“I’m Tide, bạn ngốc.”

Nicky very much did not speak Vietnamese, but even he could tell what that meant.

Looking back, it was obvious. Her aversion to water, the way she was out of work with “pneumonia” right after Tide was rescued, how she was dating Andy and knew Joe.

He looked to the ceiling, trying his best to tamp down all the conflicting emotions bubbling up within him. “I am...the biggest idiot in the universe.” He dropped his gaze, looking to Quynh, then Joe. “Why do you all put up with me?”

Joe stepped towards him slowly, reaching up as if Nicky would smack him away. He wouldn’t. He could never deny Joe anything, even now.

Joe smiled, leaning in to kiss his forehead softly. Nicky sighs into the embrace.

“It’s cute,” Joe says when he pulls back, “How you trust so much in the people you love.”

“Some would call it gullible,” Nicky bit back.

Joe smiled, shaking his head. “It shows how much you believe in the goodness of humanity. That’s a strength, not a weakness.”

Nicky looked into Joe’s eyes without any lingering fear for the first time in his life. They were such a deep brown, with flecks of gold and orange within. They looked like glowing embers, charcoals on the verge of a burst of flame. Nicky never wanted to look away again.

“Hey dumbasses,” Quynh called, bodily pulling them apart with her hands on their chests. “We’ve got a CEO richer than God and his superpowered bodyguard to take down. Let’s get cracking.”

“Superpowered?” Nicky asked, at the same time Joe joked “I don’t think God could really be considered rich, since he doesn’t have any money.”

Quynh rolled her eyes at both of them. “Fuck off, Yusuf.” She looked to Nicky. “Isn’t that why you’re here, Nico? Because of Keane?”

Nicky frowned at her. “Yes, because he’s using Merrick to launder very dangerous arms into the community. He’s the one with powers? The one Merrick is studying?”

“Well, shit.” She huffed, pulling out her phone. “I thought he was just trying to run crazy unethical experiments to figure out what made supers tick, not build a personal army. We’re gonna need reinforcements.”

Joe tensed up. “Oh, no, Quynh, we really don’t need to get Andy involved in this.”

Quynh glared at Joe, sending a quick look Nicky’s way as if to say  _ cool it with the secret IDs in front of the oblivious one _ .

“I actually knew that one,” Nicky perked up, “It’s quite obvious. I know about Sebastien and Nile as well.”

Quynh held the bridge of her nose again as she put her phone up to her ear. “We better damn well hope these security cameras don’t have audio.”

Nicky and Joe looked up at the same time, noting the cameras in the room. Nicky knew they didn’t have microphones in them - something he’d stumbled on as he was planning this out earlier - but someone could still read Joe or Quynh’s lips, possibly. Maybe. He vowed to destroy the footage anyway.

“Hey babe,” Quynh was saying, as Joe looked like he wanted to melt into the ground, “I know you just left, but Angel decided to start a takedown of the company all alone, so someone should probably come save his dumb ass.”

Nicky frowned, but conceded that it wasn’t his best plan. He could have done it, possibly, if it weren’t for  _ Keane _ being powered. That was...a wrench, certainly.

“Oh everyone’s free? Wonderful, bring them all over. It’ll be a nice bonding experience.”

Joe rolled his eyes, pouting.

“Why are you so against this, Yusuf?” Nicky asked, rubbing at Joe’s shoulder. They may be having their issues, but he still couldn’t bear to see Joe upset like this.

Joe shrugged. “Andy’s been on my case about being more responsible and thinking things through, and whatever. Plus she thinks I’m an idiot for not talking to you about...all this, earlier.” He leaned into Nicky’s touch. “I’m really not looking forward to one of her infamous ‘I told you so’ sessions, Nico. Last time Booker got one it lasted months.”

Nicky couldn’t help the small smile that spread across his face. This Joe, he was used to. Fretting over his boss, pouting in the face of what would probably turn out as many very specific and detailed threats of bodily harm, looking to Nico for comfort.

No, not to  _ Nico _ . To Nicky.

“Call me Nicky.”

Joe looked up, the small line between his brows deepening. “Nicky?” 

Quynh was looking at him, too, but he ignored it.

“That’s what my mother called me. And my family, back home.” The people I love who love me in return, he didn’t say. He had a feeling Joe knew.

Joe sighed, leaning further into Nicky’s side. He was starting to warm even more than normal, near scorching through his costume. Somehow, Nicky didn’t mind. “Nicky,”

Nicky hummed, questioning.

“Nothing, I just like the sound of it.”

Nicky didn’t think it was possible to fall further in love with this man. Turns out Joe was quite practiced in proving him wrong.

“Oh god, this is only going to get worse, isn’t it?”

Joe tensed up. “Boss! How are you, how was your lunch date? Good? I’m sure it was wonderful.”

Andy, in her ever-terrifying glory, glowered at Joe with a look that could freeze even his warm exterior. “It was fine, until I was on my way home and got a call saying one of my people was off being an idiot again.”

She stepped forward into his space. Joe didn’t so much cower behind Nicky, but it was a near thing.

“First, it was taking your boyfriend out flying over the city and letting people take a million pictures of you with that stupid sappy look on your face. Now it’s jumping into a badly-planned assault on one of the world’s most highly armed civilian outfits? What’s next, challenging the sun to a fistfight?”

Nicky stepped forward into the assault. He always was just a little more fascinated by martyrdom than was strictly normal. “All of that was my fault, don’t blame Joe.”

Her icy glare shot to him. All the parts of his body not in contact with Joe jumped into a minor shiver. Nicky almost reevaluated his estimation of her powers - did she have some sort of secret ice power going on and only use it to intimidate people? It seemed very fitting with her entire demeanor, actually.

“I’m sorry, did you force Joe to take his civilian boyfriend out for a joyride? I don’t think so.”

Nicky almost laughed. Might have, if not for the seriousness of it all creeping in around the edges. He did, now, see the amusement in holding onto secrets people didn’t know you had. He understood Joe just a fraction more. “Actually, I did. You see, the sight of my body in a pair of old jeans and a ratty t-shirt was so overcoming he just had to woo me once more. He’s such an incurable romantic, I would be remiss if I didn’t use that for my evil purposes.”

He let his true voice bleed in towards the end, partially for effect but moreso because his fake Angel accent was heavy and terrible and exhausting.

Andy’s face was stunned. Nicky nearly reconsidered destroying the security tapes if only to keep a record of this look on her face, of pure surprise. At her undefined age, he was sure nothing could surprise her anymore. Turns out he was wrong.

“Are you a much better liar than I took you for or are you just taking this weirdly well?”

Nicky opened his mouth, but Quynh answered for him. “Oh, no, he’s still a shit liar. His martyr instinct just kicked in, it makes him a little mouthy.”

An image of a small army of at least three dozen men gathering in the freight elevator by the back stairs pushed into Nicky’s line of sight.

“Incoming, twenty-six seconds until landing.” He said, mostly on instinct. His Angel voice scraped the back of his throat uncomfortably, now that he knew what it was like to forgo it while in costume.

“Where?”

Nicky blinked hard, willing his eyes to focus in front of him. Andy, Quynh, and Joe all looked ready to fight. It was odd, seeing Andy and Quynh in their civilian clothes so keyed up. No odder, he supposed, than it was for them to hear him speak as Nico in costume.

“South side, elevator. Around forty men, all armed.”

Joe nodded, him and Quynh looking to Andy. She was, by far, the least informed here on the situation, but old habits died hard Nicky supposed.

She started to direct them anyway, running to the south side of the floor. They all ran with her without question. “Joe up front, give us some cover. Angel, grab any stragglers. I’ll try to thin out the crowd from the inside.” She looked to Quynh, her eyes softening just slightly. “Where will you be, Quynh?”

Quynh drew herself up, clenching her jaw. “Wherever you are.”

Andy hesitated a second, then nodded. “There’s a water cooler here somewhere, find it and arm yourself.” She looked back to Nicky. “Time?”

“Five seconds.”

“Better hurry.”

Quynh nodded and broke off, sprinting towards the breakroom, a place where she and Nicky had spent many an hour complaining softly about unreasonable deadlines and misbehaving cultures. It only threw into sharp relief how completely his life had changed over the past few minutes - Quynh was Tide, she and Joe and Andy all knew his secret, a rogue super was in charge of security at Merrick’s and they were all readying to storm the remainder of the building, together.

“Penance and Copycat are on their way,” Andy added as she pulled out her labrys. “Let’s give them a show.”

Andy, after all this time, had impeccable timing. She finished talking just as they reached the elevator doors, slowly opening to reveal a small army of guards armed to the teeth.

Joe wasted no time lying down a wall of fire to block off their advance. Nicky sent rings through the doorway at about the height of their heads, knocking out a few in front easily.

They must have been prepared, however, because the rest ran through Joe’s firewall with little more than a minor scorch in what must be a fire-resistant version of their uniforms. Fireproof, though, definitely didn’t mean axe-proof. Andy cut through them like butter, spinning her labrys around like a dance, slicing open chests and throats.

Nicky, as much as he normally opposed killing people, did begrudgingly admire her efficiency.

A few guards broke off to try and surround them, but Nicky caught them easily and threw them back into the fray. Joe was firebombing the clump of soldiers indiscriminately, but he was barely making an impact. Their outfits were all fire-proof and so was Andy, to an extent.

Melting rubber soles flashed in his mind.

“Focus on their shoes,” Nicky directed at Joe as he pulled a few guards in close to grapple with.

Joe heeded his direction quickly, sticking a few men to the floor by their soles. “Nice one, malaki.”

Nicky was sparring with one of the guards on autopilot, his gun several feet away on the floor. His mind, like always, was mostly occupied with Joe. “I try.”

A flash of cold whipped by Nicky’s face, encasing the head of the guard he’d been fighting in a block of ice.

“Quit flirting and get fighting!” Quynh shouted, melting the man’s head to reuse the ice as a water whip to try and thin the crowd piling on her girlfriend.

Nicky laughed despite himself, pulling away the few men who attempted to follow her with a thoughtless ring. “It’s nice to have you back, Tide.”

Quynh paused with her whip around a man’s chest. “It’s good to be back, Angel.”

The rest of the fight went quickly, with all four of them fighting together in harmony like they used to all those years ago. Soon, the ground was littered with dead and unconscious guards, the temperature of the room fluctuating wildly as both Joe and Quynh’s attacks petered out.

Joe, who at some point started to fly around to catch the outer guards unaware, gently stepped onto the floor. He was looking at Quynh like she was something amazing. Nicky couldn’t even feel jealous, because she certainly was.

Joe gathered her up in a bear hug, rocking them both in small steps back and forth. Quynh was laughing into the embrace.

“A pit viper in a fight, I always said.” Joe laughed along with her. Nicky understood - it was wonderful, to be back all together like this again.

“As much as I want to take part in a reunion of sorts,” Andy broke in, pushing Joe and Quynh away from each other, “We do still have a penthouse to storm.”

“A penthouse! Awesome!”

They all turned to find Copycat running up, Penance following behind as he phased through the tables Copycat had to jump over and around.

She rolled her eyes, looking over at him. “Show off.”

He shrugged, chains rattling, as they reached Nicky and co. “Need me to do some surveillance, boss?”

Andy shook her head. “No, Book, we’ve got a good idea of what’s up there.”

“Another super,” Quynh added, turning her water to ice to hang over her shoulders like a cloak. “He controls gravity.”

Nicky frowned at her.  _ Internal specific gravity, _ the file had said. “Of himself or everything?”

“Everything.”

Penance chuckled darkly. “He picked a bad place to work, then. Skyscrapers plus gravity powers usually equals a pile of rubble and bones.”

“Quite being so dark, Pen.” Copycat nudged his shoulder.

Quynh continued, ignoring the interruptions. “He can change the area of effect, make multiple gravity bubbles at once, turn people inside out if he’s close enough. It’s not something to joke about.”

Nicky felt a pang of fear in his heart. They were superheroes, they walked into danger on a daily basis, but something about this all seemed more final. Something told him this wouldn’t end as cleanly as they wanted it to.

He reached out for Joe, wrapping their hands together tightly. Joe squeezed back just as tight.

“We’re ready.” Joe said, chin stuck out in the way Nicky knew meant he was projecting more confidence than he felt. “Let’s do this.”

Andy nodded at Joe, then looked to Nicky. “Any chance you can give us some insight?”

Nicky took a deep breath, letting his eyes unfocus from the moment. It took concentration to force visions, to see things the universe wasn’t directing him to see, but he could do it. He spent a long time making sure he could after he ran away, so that history would never repeat itself like that again.

He saw Keane guarding Merrick, the weaselly little man hiding in the penthouse bathroom. There were more armed men up there, but nothing the Guard couldn’t deal with easily.

He saw the fight in flashes - a punch, a shooting icicle, one of his own rings slicing through the air, Andy’s labrys arcing, a burst of flame - then he saw the penthouse in disarray and standing before it was...Lykon?

Lykon, laughing, surrounded by light. Lykon, looking for all the world exactly as he did the day he died. Lykon, with Andy and Joe behind him, their hands on his shoulders.

They looked happy, relieved.

His visions, he knew, showed him what was, what would be. They had never shown something that didn’t come to pass. And this time...this time they showed him Joe and Andy happy and bathed in bright light while they smiled at a dead man. 

He didn’t think Andy could die. He didn’t think his visions could show him heaven.

Nicky swallowed hard, forcing his sight back to the present. This was the first time since his father died that he cursed his powers, his visions, these wonderful and terrible things that couldn’t help him save the ones he loves. Couldn’t help him save Joe.

“Anything?” Andy asked. 

As much as he wanted to cry, to sit in a ball and wail at the unfairness of the universe, he didn’t. He couldn’t. Merrick and Keane couldn’t be allowed out into the world, not after they knew they’d been found out. Even more than that, the future couldn’t be changed.

For the first time, Nicky wished with all his heart that it could.

“He’s in the bathroom, with Keane and a few more guards,” Nicky answered rotely, hoping his voice didn’t give him away. “That’s all I can see.”

Joe’s hand tightens around Nicky’s.

Andy nods, looking to Quynh. She asks something Nicky doesn’t register, something about the building or Keane, probably very important information Nicky should be listening to.

“Excuse me, un momento.”

Nicky walked away, letting Joe’s hand slip from his grasp. He only got a few steps before he started shivering, shaking, all his grief spilling out from his heart into his limbs.

Joe’s arms were around him in a second.

“Makali, hayati, what’s wrong?”

The heat of Joe along his back, Joe’s arms tightening on his waist, the scratch of Joe’s beard - Nicky took it all in, cataloguing everything for later. For when he would no longer have any of this. For when he was alone.

Joe let go momentarily, stepping around to gather Nicky’s face in his palms. “Nicolò,” he whispered, pressing their foreheads together, “No more secrets, you promised. Tell me what’s hurting you.”

Nicky clenched his jaw so tightly it hurt. He did promise, and he wasn’t going to let his last conversation with Joe alone be a lie. 

“Spiacente,” he muttered, letting the tears fall onto his cheeks. He couldn’t stop them any longer if he tried, not when Joe was here and alive and so loving it almost hurt. “I- the vision.”

“What about it?” Joe was still whispering, so tender it made Nicky melt.

Nicky sighed, steeling himself. “I saw Lykon. With you, and with Andy. There was a bright light, and you were all smiling and happy and-” a sob escaped his throat. “I’m not ready for you to leave, Yusuf.”

Joe froze, then took a big gasping breath. “They’re never wrong, are they?”

“No,” Nicky answered, though they both already knew that, “Not once.”

They had only just gotten this, knowing each other inside and out. They had only had a few minutes of being together, truly and completely, before it was all going to be taken away from them.

Joe’s fingers came up to the edges of Nicky’s mask. “Can I? I just. If I’m not going to make it I need to see you one more time. I need to kiss you.”

Quiet sobs wracked Nicky once more, but he nodded. He needed this just as much as Joe did, consequences be damned.

His mask was peeled away reverently, as Joe leaned back to study every inch of Nicky’s face. “You’re the most beautiful man in the world, Nico. The moon when I’m lost in darkness. Everything about you still thrills me, even after all our secrets have been laid bare.”

Nicky looked up, meeting Joe fully in the eyes in a way he’d always longed to do.

“I will love you through this and every life thereafter, Nicolò. Do you understand? Our souls are meant to be, and I shall wait for you wherever I go.”

He didn’t want to cry anymore, wanted to be strong. Here Joe was - the man Nicky had loved in one form or another for near half his life, the man who he’d only just been able to truly take in his arms as an equal, the man who held every part of his heart in his burning hands - and Nicky couldn’t help but break down at the cruelty of it all. Joe, who was being so strong where Nicky was weak. Joe, who was looking towards his death and thinking only of what Nicky needed, in that moment.

Joe, the love of his life, who was going to die in a few minutes.

“I love you more than life itself, amore mio.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Joe laughed wetly, “I shall love you beyond measure and reason from this lifetime on through the next, I promise you.”

Nicky, too overcome for words, just leaned in to kiss Joe with everything he had. Every thought and emotion and promise left unsaid pressed into Joe’s soft lips, every moment they would never get to spend drawn through Nicky’s hands on Joe’s chest.

All too soon, it was over.

A hand pressed on his shoulder. “We have to go.” Quynh said, softly as if she understood. For all Nicky knew, she might. He never could hide anything from her.

Joe’s eyes caught Nicky’s once more. He looked to Quynh briefly, biting his lip.

Nicky should tell her, he was saying without words. Tell her that Andy dies, too. Tell her to take Andy and run far  _ far _ away.

But Nicky knew Quynh. Knew she would grit her teeth and not mention it to her beloved. Knew it would distract her, get her hurt after so long out of practice.

“We’re ready,” Nicky said instead, pulling his mask back up over his nose. Angel was righteous, and strong, and everything Nicky needed to be. Angel could focus, even when his heart was breaking. He had to.

Quynh rubbed at his shoulder in sympathy before walking back towards the group. Joe and Nicky joined her in short order.

He could feel the others’ eyes on him, but he looked solely to Andy. Even she looked like she was going to say something - probably tell him that any information was useful and keeping it from them could put them all in danger, even if it hurt - but Quynh stepped up in front of her.

“All right everyone, we have our plan. Stay close, stay vigilant, and stay safe.” She looked to Nicky, face soft but strong.

She was right. They had a job to do.

It turned out the plan they missed was for Joe to crash in a window, masking their entrance via the stairs. They would take the guards by surprise and, hopefully, get it all over with quickly.

Nicky swallowed any comments he might have had. Nothing he could say would make a difference, anyhow.

He caught Joe just before he hopped out the window to fly back around. They spent a moment in silence as Nicky memorized every line of his face, the curl of his lips and the set of his brow. There was a white-hot fire burning behind his eyes, and the temperature of his wrist in Nicky’s hand jumped a few degrees.

“I’m going to prove them wrong,” Joe said, with such determination that he almost made Nicky believe it, “I’ll see you again, malaki.”

Nicky bit his tongue and nodded. “See you again, Yusuf.”

Then Joe was out the window, taking Nicky’s heart with him.

  
  


Quynh practically had to drag Nicky to the elevator.

He stood there, eyes forward. Andy stood in front of him, as always. He was starting to question how smart that was, given she had no real defense apart from her uncanny ability to cheat death. Not for forever, it seemed.

Everything that lives must die, eventually. He could see the future, he knew this. He had just hoped it wouldn’t be their time, now when they were all finally together again.

Perhaps Padre Antioco was right. Hope is for the faithless, and only the faithless know true despair. 

He certainly felt like this was true despair.

Penance’s hand landed heavy on Nicky’s shoulder. He thought, briefly, that this was the most he’d been touched in a single day since he left Genoa. The thought was bittersweet.

“I have a feeling,” he said in his gruff, cigarette burned voice, “that things will turn out better than you’re expecting.”

Andy laughed. “Didn’t know you could be such an optimist, Book.”

Penance shrugged, sparing a quick glance for Copycat. “There’s a first for everything, I suppose.”

There was something brewing, there, but Nicky locked that thought away for later. He was always of the mind that nothing hurt worse than to see happiness when you have none. He was a wallower, he knew. It didn’t make it any less true.

The elevator shuddered to a stop. They could all hear a commotion happening from the penthouse proper.

“Go big or go home.” Andy whispered.

Then, the world exploded in on them.

The door blew in with only just enough notice that Quynh and Nicky could shield them all from the impact - Nicky with his rings and Quynh with her ice.

Andy growled back at him. “Get your head in the game, Angel.”

He could have easily seen this with his visions, but he wasn’t watching them at all, hoping that would mean he didn’t have to see exactly what happened, exactly how they died. But Andy was right - he was going to get them all killed if he didn’t start paying attention. He tried letting the visions overtake him, but all he could see was Andy and Joe standing with Lykon, laughing like old friends. He couldn’t bear it very long.

“They’re not working. I’m sorry.”

Andy pinned him with her gaze, but Quynh’s ice shield was starting to break with the onslaught of bullets. “Then we go without. Keep on top of things, everyone. We’ll be fine.”

Quynh let her ice wall break, and Nicky dropped his rings right after. Andy barrelled through, swinging her labrys wildly.

Then everything happened at once.

Joe flew by, melting bullets, but was smacked out of the air by an invisible force. He didn’t get back up.

Andy stuck her labrys into one guard’s neck. Keane came out of nowhere, grabbing the weapon by the hilt and burying it in Andy’s side instead. She dropped to her knees with a guttural wail, then smacked down to the ground with a sudden influx of gravity.

It was all too sudden, too soon. He wasn’t prepared.

Nicky took a deep breath, said a quick prayer under his breath for Joe and Andy, then led the charge.

“Keane!”

The man took his attention off Andy, letting up on the pressure. She didn’t move.

Copies of Nile popped up in every direction, Booker phased right through Nicky’s body to pass through, Quynh readied a flurry of sharp icicles.

It was Nicky, this time, who went first. He fought back bile at the thought that this would be the new normal.

“You killed Joe.” His words warbled more than he would have liked, but he persisted. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

He brought up his hands, thankful now more than ever that his rings were made of light, and therefore near-immune to changes in gravity. One ring wrapped itself around Keane’s neck, the other around his chest. Keane struggled and choked, and Nicky could feel the gravity pulling at his rings. Nicky was stronger, tough.

He let his visions take over, moving his body without thinking as he threw his rings in every direction. Joe was  _ gone _ , and the man responsible was here, in his grasp. He tightened the rings around Keane’s neck incrementally.

“Ni- Angel.” Quynh stopped him halfway across the floor. He hadn’t noticed he’d moved so far. He hadn’t noticed the trail of bodies that were strewn around him like forgotten ragdolls. He paid them no mind.

Nicky kept moving, closer and closer to Keane’s suspended body, floating and surrounded by rings of light like an angel.

It would be easy,  _ so  _ easy, to snap Keane’s neck. Just tighten the ring, just enough to crack the bone in his spine, sever the cord. He knew, in the back of his mind, exactly how much pressure it would take. This man deserved it.

Keane had taken Joe from him. He deserved to be punished.

_ He’s a sinner _ , Nicky remembered the way Padre Antioco’s voice curled around the words, lingering like he didn’t want to let it leave his mouth.  _ And sinners deserve their final punishment to be at the hands of the righteous _ .

Nicky stopped, watching Keane struggle and splutter, face turning pale. He looked exactly like the men did back home, when the Father sent him on one of his “missions.” Terrified of Nicky, of what he’d become.

Keane jerked one last time, then went still. Nicky dropped him, unconscious, onto the floor without fanfare.

He wouldn’t become that again. He couldn’t.

“Merrick is in back,” He said, suddenly exhausted despite the threads of rage still humming in his veins, “I should deal with him.”

“Uh, no you definitely  _ won’t _ .” Copycat jumped up, flooding the path in front of Nicky with copies of herself. “You’re scary right now, and you’re gonna do something stupid and terrible. Quynh will take care of him.”

Some part of Nicky wanted to protest, wanted to rage and scream and fight through her in the way they both knew he could. But then he caught a glimpse of Joe in the corner of his eye, lying so still against a pillar that he almost looked asleep, and all the fight left him at once.

“Joe,” he whispered. Copcat, bless her, let him go.

He sprinted to Joe’s body, cradling his head in his hands. 

He was cold. Of all the things Joe was, cold was never  _ never _ one of them. The realization hit Nicky straight in the gut.

“Yusuf, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He cradled Joe’s head to his chest, letting himself cry freely now that the fight was over. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry I pulled you into this. I’m sorry.”

Something moved in his periphery, but Nicky ignored it. If any guards were left then they could kill him, for all he cared. Nothing mattered anymore.

“Nicky,” a voice hummed, soft and low. Joe’s voice, because apparently Nicky was hearing ghosts now. Wonderful.

Would he forget Joe’s voice, after a while? His eyes, his smile? Would that be all Joe was soon - a ghost?

“Nicky, you’re crushing my face.”

Nicky froze.

He dropped Joe’s head into his lap. Joe’s alive, weakly smirking face.

“Yusuf,” Nicky sobbed, every ounce of emotion leaving him in a rush. “Yusuf you’re alive.”

Joe sat up slowly, wincing every few seconds. “Apparently. Maybe you were wrong, for once.”

“I’ve never been happier to be proven so.” Nicky leaned in, mashing his face against Joe’s in what would have been a kiss if it weren’t for Nicky’s mask in the way.

They both pulled back to press their foreheads together, laughing - Nicky’s clear and near-wild, Joe’s weak and interspersed with painful sounding coughs. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered because Joe was  _ alive _ and  _ breathing _ and somehow laughing against all odds.

“Not to interrupt the reunion,” Quynh said, voice strained, “But the entire building is set to blow.”

Nicky stopped, looking away from Joe for the first time since he woke up. “Mi scusi?”

“Bombs. In the building, laced through the foundations. Merrick was quite helpful with an icicle aimed at his jugular.”

She spared only a glance towards Andy, who was still unconscious. The wound from the Labrys seemed to be healing, but slowly.

This wasn’t the end, then. There was still time to lose them both.

“The building is huge, there’s no way we’ll be able to disarm them in time.”

“What if I split up? I might be able to reach them if I knew where they were.”

“There’s a timer, only a few minutes. No way you’d get them all in time.”

Nicky stared down at Joe’s face, letting the words all wash over him without sticking. Joe was still here, still alive in his arms - for now, at least - and Nicky wanted to memorize every inch of his face. His face that was currently frowning up at Nicky, something turning behind those warm honeyed eyes.

“The building-” Joe started, cutting himself off with a violent coughing fit. Nicky clutched him closer and rubbed his back through it. “What’s it made of, malaki?”

Nicky frowned back. “Are you all right, Joe? Did that fall hurt your head, as well?”

Joe smacked Nicky’s chest weakly. “Answer me, hayati.”

Nicky racked his brain. “Steel beams, concrete framework, bulletproof glass of a polycarbonate, plus insulation and the rest,” He rattled off, barely thinking, “Why?”

“And the bombs, Quynh?”

Quynh shrugged. “If I had to guess? C4 planted inside the walls, probably.”

“They’d need remote detonators in a chain reaction, in a building this size,” Penance chimed in from his spot skulking near the walls, “Unless they patched it into the entire computer system. With the sheer IQ of people working here, though, I doubt they would be that careless in places someone could stumble upon it.”

“Detonators made of metal?” Joe asked.

Penance paused. He looked to Nicky with a sly smile. “I told you this might work out better than you thought.”

Nicky looked between the two men, now sharing a secret smile. “I...I don’t understand.”

“They’ve been trying to get Booker to pull Lykon back from the veil,” Copycat explained, “But they haven’t been able to do it, yet.”

“Maybe he just needs a good reason.” Andy walked up to the group, limping and covered in her own blood but very much alive.

Nicky looked back down at Joe. Maybe he wouldn’t lose him after all. The relief swept over his body like a tidal wave, nearly drowning him. “It would make more sense than being able to see into heaven, suddenly.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Joe smiled, bright as ever.

Penance stepped forward, looking more steady than Nicky had seen him in a long time. “Alors. Let’s do this.”

He closed his eyes breathing deeply in his chest. Nicky felt the air around them warp and crackle. The entire room seemed to hold its breath.

Penance’s hands started glowing a bright white. He brought them forward, reaching into something only he could see and digging his fingers in to pull it open. He strained with the effort, gritting his teeth loud enough that Nicky thought he might have heard one crack.

Then, all of a sudden, his hands flew wide and a blinding light exploded from midair. Nicky along with everyone else turned his head, shielding his eyes.

“Basher?” Nicky heard Andy shout before the light had even died down. “Kid, is that you?”

There was a laugh, sweet as honey, tinged with something staticky.

Andy’s rough response was lost to Nicky under his pure relief. He opened his eyes and saw The Bronze Basher there, looking exactly like he did in Nicky’s vision. Looking exactly as he did the day he died.

His costume seemed almost garish, now, though Nicky knew it was the style of the time when he was still heroeing. Bright yellows and oranges almost glowed in the lights still clinging to his skin.

Penance, behind him, looked gaunt.

“Booker, you okay?” Joe asked, clearly on the same train of thought as Nicky.

Penance grimaced, nodded. “Yeah, it’s steady now. It’ll be a bitch to send him back, though.”

Lykon himself seemed no worse for the wear. He beamed at Andy and Quynh. “Andromache, Tide, it’s good to see you!”

Andy grit her teeth at him. “You little shit. You knew we would never have let you fight if you told us. You were just a goddamned  _ kid _ Bash.”

Quynh laid a tender hand on Andy’s shoulder, whispering something in her girlfriend’s ear.

“Don’t mind her,” Joe said as he watched Lykon’s grin freeze, “Her default emotion is anger, these days.”

Lykon relaxed a little at the reassurance. “That’s not exactly new. She’s always been like a wolverine - small and fierce and willing to tear you apart with her bare teeth.”

Andy sighed heavily, stepping towards Lykon following a firm push from Quynh. She stopped, momentarily, to help up Joe despite his grumbling. Nicky was reluctant to give up any contact with Joe, clinging still to his hand.

He almost let go when the picture in front of him became clear. Lykon told some joke that had Joe nearly in stitches through his coughs, and even Andy had a small smile. There the three of them were, laughing and smiling in a halo of bright light. The vision he saw earlier, here now in sharp relief.

He would have cried, or laughed, or collapsed in relief if Quynh didn’t speak up.

“As much as I would love a reunion,” She spared a fond look at Lykon, “We do have a lot of bombs going off. Soon.”

“Ah, right.” Lykon was still smirking, but his posture denoted something a little more serious. “Let us see…”

He dropped to the floor, sitting criss-cross with his palms flat on the floor. The metal fixtures around them shook faintly, vibrating as Lykon’s eyes slid shut and he felt for the metal around him.

“Little lead needles, right?” He asked the room at large.

Penance shrugged. “Lead and aluminum compounds, probably. Unless they’re blasting caps, which would make this a lot harder.”

Lykon shook his head. “No no, I feel them. A lot of them, near the struts. I’ll pull them out.”

He raised his hands, making the furniture around them shake more violently, crashing into each other and flinging themselves towards the edges of the room, unsettled by the force of the magnetic waves Lykon was giving off. Penance, just behind Lykon’s shoulder, was starting to look pale.

“Book?” Joe asked, concern stitched across his face.

Penance’s breathes were laboured and there was sweat practically pouring off him, but he gave Joe a tense nod. He would be fine, at least until this all was over.

The furniture around them started to rattle even more violently, some heavy pieces starting to shoot off into the walls and through the full length windows. The thought hit Nicky suddenly that Lykon hadn’t used his powers in years, and never through the lens of Penance as a facilitator. Their hopes that he could do this accurately and safely may have been misplaced.

Nicky shared a look with Andy. The determined set to her jaw told him everything he needed to know.

He tapped into his visions again, letting them flood his view. He saw lights and sirens, melting ice.

“Copycat, the fire alarm.” Nicky instructed, squeezing Joe’s hand for a second before letting go. “Can you check the monitor room to see if the building is clear?”

She sent one apparition to the fire alarm, setting it off with a loud klaxon and a flash of light. “Where’s the monitor room?”

Nicky thought back to the blueprints he’d memorised. “Two floors down, in the center.”

“Got it.” Copycat nodded, splitting off another form to send towards the stairs.

Nicky turned to face the rest of them. “There’s a lot of guards in building, probably all still unconscious. Any ideas on how to get them out?”

“What exactly did you see, Angel?” Andy was walking forward, hand clutching her axe tight.

“Ice, rubble, sirens…” Nicky shook his head, running a hand through his hair, “It was chaotic. I can’t get much more specific than that.”

Andy froze. “Ice?”

He frowned, unsure where Andy was going with this. “Sì, yes. Ice.”

Andy nodded, looking to Quynh. “Remember that one building, years ago? The one with the girls?”

Quynh shared Andy’s intense look. “Right, the skyscraper on fifth, 2006.”

“Care to try that again?” Andy raised an eyebrow, challenging.

Nicky looked to Joe, confused. “What are they talking about?”

Joe shrugged. “Andy and Quynh always had their own language, you know that.”

Nicky very much did not know that. He had spent a majority of his time working with The Guard those days - the days before Tide was taken - trying to figure out what, exactly, Joe made him feel. Most of the time it was clear annoyance, with his ego and flashy smiles and perfect hair, but there was always something under it, something tender. He only realised much later that it was affection. Love.

“ _ Angel _ !”

They had obviously called his name multiple times, judging by the shortness of Quynh’s tone.

“Hm?” He hummed, looking quickly up at Quynh.

“You memorised the building specs, right? Where are the pipes?”

He internally berated himself for not thinking of that sooner. The pipes transported water all over the building, water that Tide could use for some pretty big displays. Or, in this case, support the building long enough to clear it of civilians. “East walls and quite evenly through the floors. Chemical showers are no joke.”

“Building is clear of civilians!” Nile chimed in, looking off into the distance in the way she usually did when communicating with one of her apparitions. “Just these top four floors have people on them.”

“See?” Andy loosened her grip on her axe, just slightly, “It’s not even the whole thing, just the top few floors.”

Quynh opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the building itself starting to shudder. “Fine, okay.” She cracked her knuckles, her neck, stretched out her shoulders. “Let’s fucking do this.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up!” Penance called, looking worse by the second.

Lykon was starting to glow, now, bright yellows and whites obscuring him. It looked as if he were going to explode instead of the bombs.

Wait.  _ Bombs _ .

“Yusuf,” Nicky said urgently, grabbing Joe by the shoulders. “You can eat bombs.”

Joe frowned, a small line forming between his eyebrows. “Weird way to explain it, but yeah. I wouldn’t be able to get to all of them, though.”

“No, you only need just the one.” Nicky looked at Lykon pointedly. His face was, startlingly, beginning to bleed gold out of his mouth and eye sockets.

Nicky had never had a real chance to study Lykon’s powers before, to understand how they worked. Now, seeing them in person, he realized it was much more than just shaping metal. The furniture he was moving across the room wasn’t a result of a simple affinity for minerals, but because Lykon must have been able to manipulate electromagnetic forces. That meant, hopefully, that all the metal Lykon was moving were being charged on a cellular level. Charged with electricity, that could, if they were lucky, create a spark.

At least Joe seemed to catch his meaning. He looked at Lykon more cautiously, jaw clenching.

It was untested. Joe’s ability to absorb explosions, as far as Nicky knew, was based on the fire that ignited from the initial blast. In this case, there would be no kindling to catch, no oxygen burning. But if his power wasn’t just based on fire, but on heat like Nicky thought, then it was the energy that was produced as a byproduct that Joe was controlling, not the flame itself. If he could control that energy, then he was sure that Joe could control this, at least for long enough to stall and allow Penance to send Lykon back through the veil. Hopefully.

Penance himself was starting to shake, teeth chattering as his rigid posture started to cave in on itself. “I can’t hold him like this any longer!”

Nicky took Joe’s face in his hands, forcing them to meet eyes. His visions pressed on the back of his eyes, but he ignored them. They were running out of time.

“Yusuf, trust me. You can do this.”

Joe’s eyes looked back and forth between Nicky’s rapidly. He grabbed hold of Nicky’s wrists tightly. “How sure are you?”

Nicky smiled. “Of you? More than anything.”

Even as hesitant as he was, Nicky could see Joe’s natural confidence lying under the surface. He was going to do this, because he had to. He was going to succeed.

“Okay.”

Joe closed his eyes, just for a moment. His lips moved quickly in what looked like, to Nicky, a last-ditch prayer.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he was in motion. He lunged towards Lykon, grabbing the younger man and wrapping his arms around him.

“Now, Quynh!”

Nicky had nearly forgotten Quynh was going to support the building until he felt the blast of cold air hit his skin through his suit. In seconds nearly the entire floor was covered in ice, near-opaque and bitingly cold.

“Booker, let go.” Andy commanded firmly.

Penance jerked, shook his head. “I- it’ll kill us, Andy.”

Andy stalked up to Penance. She grabbed him by the shoulders. “Let go  _ now _ Sebastien.”

Penance shuddered once more, then dropped his arms.

There was a moment, hanging heavy in the air, when all the noise from before stopped. The furniture and walls and windows stilled, leaving them in the middle of a silent frozen landscape.

Everything after that happened at once.

Lykon screamed, there was a blinding flash of light through the entire lab, the ice cracked open in huge seams from a blast of dry heat, Nile and Quynh and Sebastien and everyone was shouting. Nicky heard his own voice amongst the chorus, despite not consciously making any noise. He was trying not to make any movement at all.

Just as sudden as it started, everything stopped.

Nicky blinked hard a few times. He was flat on the ground, ice burning his back. The afterimage burned on his eyelids looked almost like an angel.

“Everyone still with me?”

Of course Andy would be the first to recover.

The answers were weak and stilted, but they came. Quynh and Nile answered first, Sebastien not far behind, weak though his voice was.

“Sono qui,” Nicky answered as he slowly sat up, cradling his head in his hands. His skull felt like it was splitting, on top of all the other injuries he already had. Recovery from this one was going to be long.

“Joe?”

Nicky looked up so quickly that it almost made him screw his eyes shut with the pain at the sudden movement. “Yusuf?”

Joe was lying akimbo on the floor, nearly blending into the golden ash left by Lykon’s ghost.

He was alive, he had to be. There was no other choice. Nicky couldn’t go on without Joe now, couldn’t continue to fight for those who needed him, to keep innocent people safe. Joe had to be alive, so that Nicky could go on living.

Joe’s head lolled to the side. He spit out a mouthful of dust with a soft puff. “Very tired.”

All of Nicky’s energy melted out of him. As bad off as Joe might look, lying near motionless in the aftermath of their predecessor’s ghost’s explosion - which, if someone had tried to explain this all to Nicky a week ago, he would have walked away with a migraine capable of putting a weaker man out of commission for days - he was okay. He was, blessedly, alive.

Nicky half stepped, half crawled towards Joe, stopping only when he could gracelessly drape himself over Joe’s legs which were nearly too hot to touch. He smelled overwhelmingly of superheated metal.

“How about we never do this again?” Copycat asked, leaning against what may have once been a desk, but was now so warped out of shape it was nearly beyond recognition.

Andy grunted, dropping to lie down on the floor. “Agreed.”

“We should leave before the cops get here,” Quynh said, making no move to get up from her sprawl, either.

Joe, groaning, sat up slowly. Nicky lamented for a moment the loss of his cushion. “If we don’t leave soon, Copley’s going to kick all of our asses.”

There was a long pause in which no one moved at all.

Andy, predictably, spoke up first. “Yeah, fine. Up and at ‘em, kids.”

Nicky closed his eyes, still lying uncomfortably on the icy ground. He’d always hated ice, really. He shouldn’t be so able to drift off like this, freezing ice pressing into his body through his costume. “Go on without me,” he mumbled. It was so nice, to be lying down. So cozy.

Joe’s hands started to pry at Nicky’s shoulders. Nicky tried to swat him away.

“Come on, habibi,” Joe whined, “Let’s go. You don’t know Copley, yet, but he has a power of his own.”

“The power to make us all want to shoot ourselves if it gets us out of more paperwork,” Sebastien added, voice strained and cracking.

“Not what I was going to say, but not entirely wrong.”

Sebastien’s smug look could be seen even without Nicky opening his eyes.

Nicky allowed Joe to help him up, eventually, and they all leaned on each other in exhaustion as they made it to the elevator. It was jammed.

“Stairs?” Nile suggested, looking less than pleased at the prospect.

“I’d offer to fly,” Joe said, “But I’m too tired to get myself down there, let alone all of you.”

Andy stepped towards a broken window. Quynh grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “No jumping out of forty-story windows. I don’t care if you’ll heal.”

Nicky grunted. “There’s another elevator on the other side. Freight class. It should still be working.”

Joe planted a sloppy kiss on Nicky’s cheek. “My hero.”

Nicky directs them all to the other elevator without opening his eyes more than a fraction. The lights were so bright, and he was so tired. He couldn’t wait to sleep for the next three years.

They were a few feet away when the elevator opened on its own. Nicky half-heartedly conjured some rings in his hands, and he could feel the others try to look at least vaguely competent around him.

“Oh, it’s just you.” Andy sounded almost disappointed.

Nicky frowned. He opened his eyes and looked towards the open doors of the elevator. There was a man there, standing so primly in a wool cardigan and loafers. He looked so out of place here, a disappointed academic type among the rubble and ice and unconscious bleeding hitmen that Nicky couldn’t help but burst out into laughter.

After a moment, he could hear the rest of them join him. He could feel the way Joe was shaking with it through the vibrations in his ribs.

They had just infiltrated a pharmaceutical company -  _ Nicky’s _ company - and took out not only dozens of armed gunmen, but also a powered former soldier, a booby-trapped building, and a spontaneously combusting ghost on a Tuesday morning. The whole thing was wildly ridiculous, and it felt like such an immense weight was being lifted, pound after pound shed as he laughed.

If he can laugh at all of this, Nicky thought, then maybe he wouldn’t have to worry so much anymore. About his identity, about his relationship with Joe, about his friends and his family and his newfound lack of employment and whether he should join The Guard - none of that mattered. All that mattered was here, now, leaning between Joe and Nile, seeing as his friends were all cracking up over the sight of such a normal man in such a not-normal place.

Maybe, if they kept all this up, everything might just turn out all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some little things: first, this chapter was supposed to be much shorter but then they all got to talking and ragging on Nicky and, well. He deserved a little ribbing. Second, the vision with the 40 something men stuffed in one elevator reminded me violently of my time as a tour guide when I had to cram twenty-odd people in a single elevator multiple times every day. It was a rough time in my life.  
> Also, the Lykon scene was low-key inspired by the Ben scene in the s1 finale of The Umbrella Academy. If you’ve watched it, you know what I’m talking about.


	8. I Saw The Future in the Flames

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from Wildfires. This is it y’all! This is just a short epilogue to set up some stuff I'll talk about in the end notes.  
> Regardless, thank you so much for reading and sticking with this monster of a fic! (nearly novel length! Thats wild!)

The Guard headquarters was honestly not at all what Nicky suspected. He’d grown up on superhero cartoons, where the heroes met in huge towers or orbiting space stations. Seeing the squat former factory deep in the industrial sector of town was, suffice to say, a little bit of a disappointment.

“Hello, visiting hours are actually closed for the day.”

Nicky saw Sebastien phasing through the doorway, in his civilian clothes. Nicky looked down to check and no, he was wearing his Angel suit, mostly. The pants could be a little...tight, so he’d thrown on some jeans and a jacket over, but he was still very obviously Angel.

“No, I’m here for-”

Sebastien laughed, waving a hand to cut Nicky off as he closed the distance between them. “I’m kidding, Angel. I know why you’re here. It’s just odd. I’ve never seen you here, thought you might be lost.”

Sebastien looked no worse for the wear, luckily, dressed down as he was in a casual button down and jeans, hair loose and slicked back. After how terrible he looked when they parted ways at Merrick’s a few days ago, Nicky was a bit worried. It was nice to see those worries were unfounded.

“Joe finally convinced me.”

Sebastien frowned. “You mean…”

“Yes,” Nicky nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets, “I’m here to officially join The Guard.”

Sebastien just looked at him for a beat, then surged forward to capture Nicky in a tight hug. Nicky, still unused to such frequent physical contact, could only bring himself to awkwardly pat Sebatien’s back.

“Mon dieu, Ange, it took you long enough.”

Sebastien pulled back, looking down at Nicky’s uniform under his outerwear.

“So I take it this means you’re keeping it under wraps, still.”

Nicky noticed the disappointment in his tone, even as well-hidden as it was. “I’m still not comfortable with too many people knowing, not yet at least,” Nicky said. While he was sure word would get out eventually - as careful as they promised to be, Nicky knew Andy or Quynh or Joe would slip up at some point accidentally - he wasn’t ready quite yet. He wasn’t sure he would ever be ready, until the day came. That’s how it went with Joe, anyhow.

“Well what should I call you, then?” Sebastien asked, taking it all in stride, “Angel seems a little too formal for Mario Kart competitions, you know?”

Nicky clenched his jaw. He hadn’t thought of that. 

“That’s what we’ll be talking about with Copley, actually.”

Nicky sighed in relief at Joe’s quick thinking, turning around to meet his eyes as Joe walked up behind him, dressed similarly to Sebastien in his civilian clothes.

Copley, as Nicky had learned, was the man behind The Guard’s operations. The government had assigned them an agent to help keep them in line, after Lykon’s death, though they kept it under wraps for the most part. A civilian, for the most part, who had close access to most of the city’s superheroes was a dangerous thing.

For his part, he kept them mostly in line. He directed their missions, helped to keep their identities secret if they chose to, coordinated the press. It was a thankless behind-the-scenes job, but Nicky had a feeling that he was much more integral to the current public’s infatuation with The Guard than anyone would admit.

“Now stop bothering the poor guy,” Joe continued, placing a gentle hand on Nicky’s shoulder, “We’ve got a shitton of paperwork to look forward to.”

Sebastien made a face at that, laughing. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He met Nicky’s eyes, his gaze somehow equally warning and reassuring. “Welcome to the team, Angel. Maybe now Joe will finally shut the fuck up about you.”

“Doubt it,” Joe winked, “Now I just get to say it to his face.”

Sebastien rolled his eyes, walking away from them back into the headquarters.

Joe and Nicky lingered for a moment.

“Last chance to back out,” Joe said, taking Nicky’s hands in his own. Nicky could feel the heat pooling between their joined palms. It felt something like redemption.

After everything these past few days - sharing his identity with Joe and Quynh and Andy, taking down his former employer and, hopefully, stopping the arms deals in the community, discovering off-the-books experiments on supers - this seemed like the right next step. He had no more reservations against joining The Guard, now that the right people knew, and it would allow him to be closer to his best friend and his boyfriend. He would no longer have to have a day job to take up his time, being paid by the city as a part of The Guard - a facet which helped his decision more than it probably should have, given his newfound unemployment - and he could possibly devote that time to going back to school, something he’d always wanted to do but could never justify the time for.

Besides, Nicky’s mind was made up long ago.

“I go where you go, Yusuf. Now and always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely going to become a series, so stay tuned for that. I plan to post some scenes in Joe’s perspective (specifically that first date, just before/during the flying scene, and a few others) and some flashbacks with the Guard and Tide, possibly the first time Nicky and Joe fought together, and Nile joining the group for the first time. But the Official Sequel will look at what happens when Joe and Nicky are officially a couple in all regards and all secrets are out (but not to the public! Who think Joe is cheating on Angel with this random scientist! Oh the drama!).  
> Basically, this AU has consumed my life.


End file.
